Pilot Wings
by Lady of the Phoenix
Summary: Home is where the heart is, or so they say. But sometimes the heart is somewhere else, and home isn't nearly so important anymore. At least, that is what Nida, a Balamb SeeD finds when he winds up in the home of one Cid Highwind. Sequel to 'Hyne's War.'
1. Prologue

Author's Notes: I can't believe this has happened. I'm doing an honest to god cross over. Yeah, yeah, I did Tears, but that was not SPECIFICALLY FF8's Irvine and Nida. Who knows. But this one is an honest to god cross over. The idea struck me when I went to sleep, and hopefully it fits the needs of the one who asked me for a Cid Highwind/Nida piece. It's just a snippet of a greater whole, a prologue of sorts, because I love the idea SO much. Besides, now that my other Nida piece is done and I'm not quite ready for the sequel to that, I think I enjoy the idea of this as a longer piece.

* * *

Pilot Wings

_Home, they say, is where the heart is. They also said that when you were homesick you missed people more than places, or little gestures you were used to. I never really believed them when they said that. I was, after all, an orphan and a mercenary. There was no real 'home' to return to, just Garden. There were no people that really cared that I was there, probably because they had never noticed me. There were no gestures I got on a normal basis except for a small nod from Squall or Xu to tell me that it was time to get Garden moving. And it wasn't like I could miss the home cooked meals, because honestly, the smell of hotdogs had always made me sick. _

_But, the longer I spent away from Garden and my life, the more I came to realize that even I was vulnerable when it came to homesickness. I grew to miss the little things, like the odd comfort that came with a uniform that was just a bit snug around the neck. Or the invisibility resulting from being one of many students, and then the most lackluster member of SeeD. I missed Seifer's taunts, and Squall's indifference. Selphie's optimism and Zell's obsession with food and fighting. I even grew to miss Irvine's lady's man routine, and the Instructor's aloofness. _

_More than anything, I missed Garden itself. Not the cafeteria, or library, or quad, but the whole thing. The power of a shelter, the strength of mercenaries, the freedom of going wherever I was told, and wherever he really wanted. What I missed was the Rag, and flight. What I missed was looking up at the stars I had known all of my life and wishing I could be among them._

_Yet, the longer I stayed here, the more my life was changed by this place. The loneliness that had been eating at me for so long was slowly fading, and the anonymousness that I had cloaked myself in was pulled away. Suddenly everyone wanted to know me, everyone wanted to be like me. I had friends, I had family, and, more importantly, I had a dream within reach. Sure, space was still out there waiting, still is really, but I finally had something that made me want to stay on the ground, something to come back to. _

"Where the GODDAMN hell have you gotten to, you fuckin' flyboy?!" a rather gruff voice called out, cutting easily through the chilled night that was common of Rocket Town in the fall.

A pen that had previously been scratching thoughts into words on the blank pages of an old, battered, black leather diary paused as the one holding it chuckled.

"I'm over here," the writer chuckled, waving a hand towards the blonde pilot. Here he was, not three feet away, resting under the oak he always rested by, and the man had still chosen to bellow out his summons so that the rest of the town could hear it. As if they didn't have enough to talk about already.

He had to chuckle as the rough looking man turned to glance at him. He could almost imagine the frown forming around the ever present cigarette, a direct contradiction to the happy twinkle that would be in those bright blue eyes.

"Hurry your lazy ass up," came the order of a man used to being obeyed, "Or I'll tell Shera to give your food to the dog."

The youth nodded and watched the older man retreat. That was as close to affectionate as the man got in public, so he couldn't really be upset. Instead he turned back to the book, scribbling a few more lines by the light of a strong hunter's moon. When he was done the book was closed and rose. It was time for dinner and a bad excuse for tea. The book and pen were left behind below the tree, open to the last words he had put down. It would be safe, because it wasn't like it was going to rain before dinner was over.

_Now that I've found my reason to come back to the ground, I'm not sure if I want to leave, and I can't quite find it in me to miss home. Can I really be held to blame for that? Well, maybe, in some eyes, I can. I'll leave that choice to you. After all, this isn't written for my sake, but for yours._

_My name is Nida Nomura, and in these pages is my life, my hopes, my fears. Not all of them, there would never be room, and not final, as I hope to have more years yet. But they are the important parts to date, and I want to share them with you, if you'd have the patience to sit back, and bear with me. _


	2. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Yes, I have made many calculations for such things relating to this story. I promise that it is quite interesting. It is intended to take place 3 years after normal game in the FF7-verse (making it JUST post Deep Ground) and about 4 years post game in FF8-verse… mainly so Nids can be of drinking age. There are new errors in the prologue now that things have been thought out more, but I have not changed what Nida wrote. I suspect he's just being modest and such.

I'm doing the whole thing from Nida's side, and might in the future do it from Cid's. Because lord knows Cid is a bundle of joy. I add 'please do not sue me for the presence of Kiros. He's just too cool'. I doubt that I shall again, at any time, write as if Nida was writing what has taken place like in the prologue. I've got other ideas for this thing, and I hope you enjoy them.

* * *

Chapter 1

Hours are a rather tricky little thing. In the old days hours were all known for some special purpose, like six in the morning being the hour of awakening, and midnight the hour of dark magic. There was four a.m. when the most ridiculous, and perfect, ideas were conceived, and noon, where lunches were taken and wars halted for a shared meal. Other hours varied by region, era, and often beliefs of people, but there was one hour as universal in its meaning and purpose as midnight or noon. That hour was three in the morning, when those who were sleeping wanted to keep sleeping, and those that were awake knew that they would not find sleep. Interrupting either the sleeper, or those awake, was always likely to find a head parted from a torso…

Apparently someone in the world did not understand this point, some part of Nida, way back in the corner of his mind, mused as the sound of a ringing phone cut through the silence of the dark room. A part of him that was a throwback to the times where the holiness of the dark hour was kept wanted to just shoot the vid-phone, but the part of him that was trained as an obedient sort of person crushed that desire and sat up. He groaned and reached out, fumbling around for the button that would answer the annoying ringing. As the 'ping' of the answer came and the screen lit up, the SeeD prepared the dirtiest look he could manage that he might direct it at whoever would dare to call him this early.

Somewhere inside he'd been ready for just about anyone calling him without good reason. They were, after all, calling his person line back in Balamb, and they weren't at fault if they didn't know he was in Esthar with all his calls being forwarded there. Selphie never really looked at the clock, Zell never seemed to calm down, and Quistis, even after all this time, sometimes forgot just what her actions could cause. What he hadn't been expecting was to meet a look as cold as his was dirty.

His first thought was that he should really salute. The second was that it was pointless, as he was supposed to be off duty and Squall didn't like that formality anyway. A third suggested flipping Squall off. So the man went with a neutral reaction… he blinked and continued to give Squall that dirty look.

"You know," he said after a minute, knowing Squall wouldn't say 'hello' anyway, "There is that little set of clocks on your desk that give you the exact time it is in the major cities of the world. Have you looked at it lately?"

Were Squall the sort to do it, he probably would have sighed. Nida could tell that sort of thing just from the sort of silence he was suffering from now. What people didn't know was that you could tell a lot about the Lion of Balamb by the type of silence you got out of him. This was the 'I'm fully aware of what you mean, but the way you're saying it is frustrating me' silence. Normally it was reserved for the Galbadian Headmaster, young mister Seifer Almasy. Of course, he had also used that silence a good deal during the war. Not the Sorceress War, but the Reclamation War. But that was another story all together.

"So," Nida sighed after another moment of the withering silence of Squall's gaze. "To what do I owe the honor of getting a call at this hour in the middle of my mandatory vacation?"

Mandatory vacations had been a brain child of the SeeD Commander come Headmaster of Balamb Garden, come High SeeD Commander after the war. All SeeDs over a certain rank were required to take three days in a row off every third month. It was due to the 'stress' of their jobs. Considering the fact that the only SeeDs over that level were either heroes of the wars, or other parts of the 'Garden Bunch' as Selphie called them, there wasn't much stress on their parts. Well, no greater stress than they had previously been under. Unless you counted the work of SeeD Commanders and Headmasters to be strenuous. Often, when they got together, Nida was teased for being the only one that actually had a stressful job. He did, after all, train young men and women to drive and pilot many sorts of vehicles, and the girls could be jumpy.

There was a look upon Squall's face that answered the question, and Nida sighed. He knew that look, it meant that Squall had a job for him. There was, after all, no other reason for the man to summon him at this time during those days he was promised not to be bothered in his private home in Esthar. If Squall was summoning him then it was important and dangerous. Something only a high level SeeD could do. If one set aside the busy schedules the others had, which they often did when they were needed, the fact that was chosen meant it required a quick and clear mind, which ruled out Selphie and Zell, an ability to follow orders, which meant no Seifer, a gift with technology, so no Irvine, and an unobtrusive way of getting information from people while seeming totally harmless, which meant no Squall or Quistis. He hated work like this, it was never very fun.

Apparently Squall managed to read his own expression, and a hint of pity came into otherwise cold eyes. Great, Squall was pitying him. That was ALWAYS a horrible sign of how things were going to go.

"So, what is it? Lost technology we need to retrieve from archeologists in the Centra ruins? Protecting some inventor from Esthar as they travel to Galbadia? Talk some sense into President Loire?"

It was all said in one breath, and ignoring the one time Squall could not resist cutting in with his own beliefs. No matter who was talking or about what, the second 'President' came out in reference to Laguna, Squall quickly corrected people with a mumbled 'King'. Let no one ever say that Squall got along well with his father. Sure, they did actually get along well when you ignored how much Squall hated his father's very physical way of reacting to things and people, but saying so to Squall would result in a gunblade in your gut.

"Odine."

It was all Squall had to say to get a groan from Nida.

"Odine? Come on, you're waking me up at three in the fucking morning for Odine? You're sure someone else can't do this?"

Ah yes, there was that trademark Leonheart look that was a frown wrapped in a disapproving glare.

"Zell and Selphie…" Nida began, only to realize just how dumb that was. Zell hated the man for how he felt belittled near him and Selphie always referred to him as a not-so-happy clown.

"Or Irvine…" he continued, but that was a fail as well. Irvine didn't have any clue about any technology more complicated than his point and shoot guns. The Trabian Headmaster was having a hard enough time keeping the gunner from frying the computer systems from his attempts to 'reason' with it.

"Seifer is free…" was the next attempt from the pilot. That would not work at all. Seifer preferred to avoid Esthar. There weren't very many people that held the Sorceress Knight thing against him, but those that did lived in Esthar, and Odine was among those that called for his head, but mainly for his desire to examine the bond between knight and sorceress since he couldn't cut open Cid Kramer or Squall.

"What about Quistis?" But that wouldn't work either. Odine hit on that woman without shame, and the last time she had worked with him it had ended with a threat to cut his head from his body if he was in the same room as her again, and she wasn't talking about the one that could be mistaken as a clown mask.

"Come on Squall, couldn't you do it?"

The look Nida got for that one was enough to make Ifrit himself shiver. A look like that four years previous would have sent even Ultimecia or Griever running. If only he had mastered that look before the war they might have avoided a lot of heartache. Truth of the matter was that Squall did his very best to avoid the country where Rinoa and his father resided. Well, they didn't reside together. Rinoa was there to help Odine with his research on sorceresses. Laguna was there because he was the President. And the man seemed quite set upon making Squall his successor in the office of President. Squall was very adamant about not becoming the next king and was currently doing everything in his power to avoid the country and his father. Oh, and Rinoa and Odine and people that really thought he was some kind of prince. Hero he could handle, General he could accept, but prince or king was a title he didn't desire to add to the list.

"Fine," Nida said, his defeat finally accepted. Sometimes he wondered just how he managed to argue with someone who didn't say a word and still lose. Maybe it was because it was three in the morning. He always managed to lose if something came up at three in the morning, and it did often enough. Could that be the reason Squall always chose that sorts of times to call him at?

"You won't have time to come back here to be briefed, and I won't do it over the phone. I'm sending the files on to Kiros, so have him brief you in the morning…"

Nida could understand that approach easily. As long as it was election season in Esthar the scarred man didn't even want to speak with his father. That wasn't why he glared at Squall for bringing Kiros into this. No, the glare that he developed was because that with the use of the name, the person it described shifted in the bed beside him. While a light sleeper in most cases, the man would sleep through time compression at Nida's side and not awaken unless his name was used or the alarm clock went off.

When Kiros groaned and slowly awoke Nida couldn't help but blush. Time to end this conversation before Squall found…

"Hmmm…" came from the vid-phone and Nida wanted nothing more than to hide the man who was propping himself up behind him. The noise was accompanied by a grunt in response from Kiros as he finally looked over Nida's shoulder at the screen.

"Kiros," came the greeting from the brunet. There was amusement in the following silence. It was a kind of silence that said 'You're busted Nida'.

"Squall," Kiros responded, easily picking up on the nuances of the silence from his time dealing with Ward. The silence after his own greeting meant something along the lines of 'You hadn't told him?'.

Great, attacks by silence on two fronts.

"Well, will you just look at the time? I should really be heading back to bed," the pilot said, desperately trying to break up the attack of silence.

"I'm sure you should. I'll send the information later for Kiros to look over," Squall responded, the look in his eyes reading 'We'll talk about THIS later'.

"I shall get right onto it as soon as possible," Kiros responded, draping a rather possessive arm over Nida's shoulder, making sure to let his fingers play over the strong torso. The young SeeD would have put any money on the fact that Kiros was doing it not just to embarrass him, but to see Squall's reaction. He was, after all, the best friend of the SeeD's father.

"Quite sure you will," Squall said, a smirk much like one Seifer was famous for gracing his scarred face. "Call me when that is cleared up."

With that the screen went black and Nida went red as a beet. Okay, maybe that red as a beet thing had to do with Kiros sinking his teeth into an already tender shoulder, but he was still red.

"Did you HAVE to do that?" the pilot sighed. It wasn't that he wanted to be all private about the whole thing, but Kiros had said it was just a little fling, and that he'd rather Laguna didn't know. According to Kiros the worst kind of Laguna one could have to deal with wasn't father-mode Laguna, but Laguna attempting to lecture someone on why whatever it was that they were doing was wrong.

"Yes actually," the older man chuckled. "And it isn't as if he's going to tell anyone."

Kiros did have quite the point there. Squall listened to the gossip, he didn't spread it. Said that it helped him to keep up to date on things that might impair the work of his SeeDs. Nida couldn't help but feel that he was just rather nosey. For a man who had tired so hard not to be invisible, he didn't actually want his personal life handed on a silver platter to the most powerful man in the world.

"But that isn't the point," Nida protested, allowing Kiros to push him back down on the bed and lean over him.

"And what is the point?"

The question was followed by teeth nipping once more at his shoulder and fingers slowly moving south. Part of Nida was thankful for the inappropriateness of the whole age thing. Being with Kiros was an experience fueled by his years of experience. Not to mention the man had quite the agile body.

He hissed through clenched teeth, quite enjoying the pressure of the exotic man's bites, "He didn't know about this."

"He's quite smart you know. I'm sure that he could tell what was going on if I was in bed with you."

"Not that," he sighed. "Squall had no clue that I was…"

There was laughter as Kiros finally caught the drift of his young partner. "So what you're saying is… I have just outted you?"

"In simplest terms… Yes you ass."

Pillow connected with head and after a moment laughter filled the normally empty Estharian apartment. There were, after all, worse ways to come out. Granted, he couldn't think of very many, but there had to be worse ways. After a further romp, and dealing with a shoulder that was now bleeding, they settled down to return to sleep. They did, after all, have several hours until sun up and work had to begin.

If three in the morning was an hour for leaving things as they were, and four an hour for inspiration, five was an hour of thought. It was a time of introspection and revelation. Nida knew this. It was as sure to him as three in the morning or midnight or noon. In knowing this he intended to make full use of the hour, even as he stared up at the ceiling and wondered what more could go wrong.

He would swear upon the Rag itself that this hadn't been his intention at the beginning of the day. All he had set out to do was enjoy a casual lunch and look over the schematics of the newest hovers being designed. No part of him had sought out the minister of foreign affairs or would desire to do so. It had been very pleasant, and Nida had fallen even more for the city he had already decided to retire to when he had the chance. But there he'd been, clad in those long robes that Nida knew now did him no justice. Glances back and forth had lead to the older man joining him at his table, discussing the new designs and what Nida might change about them.

Before he'd known it the SeeD had found himself agreeing to a duel with the dark skinned man. Never before had he fought someone who used a set of katals, much less one who was proclaimed as a master. Yes, he had taken on Squall time and time again when neither had sparring partners, and he'd trounced Quistis and Selphie once in a while. All things considered he was in a good position to take Kiros down. What he hadn't expected was to be laid out flat on the training room floor with the blade of one of those katals against his throat. Moments later the weapons had been tossed aside and the two were all over each other. And the rest was history.

Who knew such a little mistake would cause him trouble with Squall. Well, there wasn't exactly trouble yet. Squall had been more amused by the situation than shocked. Could the man have known? Why wasn't Squall more upset about him sleeping with a man who was old enough to be his father? And why hadn't the man been bothered by the fact that Kiros was feeling him up so to speak while they were on the phone?

There were no answers when six rolled around and the alarm went off. The SeeD rolled from the bed and made for the shower. Questions could be answered later. Right now he had work to do. And work was a damn important thing to a SeeD.

--------

Nida loved Esthar. The city was clean, the people were nice, the sky was so beautiful that one could stare at it for hours with no regrets. If one were to ignore the fact that the city had once been ruled by a cruel sorceress than it was a wholly pleasant place. Except for Odine.

Odine was a pompous, heartless, insensitive, arrogant, maniacal fool. And those were just his good qualities. He had willingly worked with a sorceress. His hands had been those that Ellone had been delivered into. It was his work that had given Ultimecia the means of sending herself back, and compressing time. He worked for the highest bidder, and was hardly worth the price of his clothes. But, were it not for him things might have been far worse. He had helped to seal Adel, he'd created the Odine brand jewelry, he'd given them means to stop the Lunatic Pandora. It was his technology that had sealed Esthar off from the world. And so SeeD let him live, but no experiment went unwatched.

That was why Nida was here today. One of the larger projects was going to be tested today, and he was the only one but Quistis or Squall who could even understand it. At the moment he was frowning as he looked over screen after screen of data from smaller scale experiments. Even with all of these details he was having trouble understanding just how the machine worked. Nor could he understand just why Odine would desire to create a machine the replicated time compression. Still, it wasn't his place to ask. That was what Laguna and Kiros did. He was just here to make sure things went smoothly. They usually did anyway.

"Ready?" Odine called from his place near the large machine.

In all honesty, Nida was far from ready for whatever Odine was willing to try. But he did nod and stand. The reports were detailed enough and from what he had understood he was sure the principle was sound. A bit of magic from both the Ellone machine and Rinoa directed into the small portal, and voila, a small bubble of compressed time. No one, not even Odine, was completely sure what it would look like if it worked. All they could do was hope that it did.

With a nod to Rinoa, Odine began the machine. One could almost feel the power of the young sorceress's magic filling the room. The energy made the hairs on the back of Nida's neck stand on end. Rinoa's hair seemed to catch in the magical wind, whipping it around wildly. Even Odine's clown clothes were moving from the power, despite the fact that they were stiff from starch.

It was hard to tell just when he knew it was going wrong. Maybe it was when time seemed to speed up instead of slow down. Maybe it was when the pinprick of light gave way to darkness. It was probably when Rinoa screamed or Odine threw himself behind a tall shelf for safety. But by the time he had noticed it was too late to do anything himself. The whole of his being was being pulled at, and there was nothing he could do. It hurt, as if he was being tugged in different directions by wild chocobos. It hurt and all he wanted was for that pain to stop. He was almost thankful when darkness enveloped him.

--------

When he awoke, it was far from willingly. Every other second his whole body shuddered as drop after icy drop of water fell from some source and made contact with his closed eyelid. It did not help that the rest of him seemed to be drenched as well, and his whole body was aching in one way or another.

Nida's first thought was 'captured', and a close second was 'shit, Seifer'. Now, while it might not seem a logical order of thoughts to an outsider, it most definitely was to him. Over the years, and especially during the war, there were points where good men and women (boys and girls really) had fallen into the hands of enemy forces. Somewhere behind the wall of ice, Squall seemed to sense when things like this happened and where they would end up. So a small force was always brought together to bring their people back home. Logic had dictated for strong arms who were more than capable of handling massive amounts of enemy forces on their own, so Squall and Seifer were selected for these missions. They also needed a person that could get through the electronic defenses and get them out of there. So Nida joined their little force.

It had all been rather nice until it came to the point where Nida's plane had been shot down over terrorist territory and he had been captured. He remembered being beaten and cuffed to something or other just below a leaky pipe. While it hadn't been pleasant, it hadn't been for long either. No later than a day after his gracious accommodations were arranged had a hubbub been created outside of his 'room'. After a moment the door was knocked in and there was Seifer, Hyperion in hand and coated in blood. The white clad man had frowned as he entered the room.

'You okay?' Seifer had asked as he used the blade to cut through the bindings.

'Yeah,' Nida had agreed, taking the long wooden pole Seifer had brought with him. Not his actual weapon, which was probably stored somewhere closer to where Squall was, but it would do. 'Thanks.'

'Good,' the scarred blond had said, hauling Nida to his feet before punching him with quite a bit of force in the arm. 'I don't like having to beat the shit out of morons who got injured on top of being captured.'

Seifer had continued to tease and insult him while leading him through the compound until they met up with Squall. After that Nida had taken great care not to get caught again, and he understood a bit better why the people Seifer rescued tended to look like children with their hands caught in the cookie jar. Five minutes alone with Seifer tended to put the fear of him into a person. It was one of those cases of 'with friends like these who needs enemies' situations. He had, after all, seen what Seifer had done to Squall, who was a friend. The amount of scars they had from each other was alarming. Of course, these days Nida had his own fair share from time spent with Squall in training.

Well, time to wake up then. Nida quickly opened his eyes and sat up, despite the dizziness that came with it. Damn, if he was dizzy like this he'd been laying down for quite a while. His mind, aided by fingers, took stock of what injuries he might or might not have long before the scenery registered. He had gotten all the way to assuring himself that there were no broken bones before he really paused to look around.

Nida found himself outside below a cloudless night sky. The grass around him was soaked, the ground was soft, and the water that was dripping down happened to be from the branches of the tree he'd apparently been placed under. It took a whole ten seconds for his mind to file away the fact that he was wet from rain that had already passed, and by that time the SeeD was on his feet.

Something was wrong, very wrong, and it wasn't just him being outside. Firstly, Esthar didn't have any grasslands within many miles, and the closest trees were part of the great forest of the north. That wasn't the worst of it though. When he'd been in Esthar he'd been enjoying his vacation in the wonderful fall air, and from the looks of things here, it was early spring. He was in an entirely different hemisphere from the city. And, worst of all, the stars were wrong.

Now, many people might argue that different stars would be visible were he actually in another hemisphere, but it was worse than that. Nida was a pilot, a navigator, and he'd prided himself on not only a sense of direction, but a knowledge of the stars. None of the constellations were right for any time in the year in any part of the world. Were he in the northern half of the world he'd always be able to see Eden's Light, also known as the north star. Were he anywhere else there would be a handful of easily recognized stars and constellations calling out to him. Instead there was none, there was nothing.

He was utterly and totally lost, and there was nothing he could do. Part of him said search for civilization. Another said to just sit around and wait to be found. The SeeD part of him went into crisis mode, announcing very clearly to those two other parts of the brain that they weren't needed at the moment and could they please shut themselves up. They would? Good.

Despite the pain in his back, Nida listened when that part of his mind directed him to search around for any lose branches in the tree, in case he would need some weapon other than his hands. Sadly there were none, but then again, he wouldn't be forced to climb the tree to pull it down either. The next step was to shed as much of his damp clothing as possible. The uniform coat he had always been so proud of was removed and made into a little bundle that he could throw his undershirt into. Luck was with him in that his boots were dry and watertight at that, so there was no concern there. Then, with bundle in his arms, Nida took a look around before heading in a random direction. No reason behind any of it, just needed to go somewhere, right?

There was little more than walking and shifting the bundle that was his wet shirt and coat until nearly sunrise. It was then that things began to happen. Everything started slowly of course. The distant sound of the grass moving just the slightest bit wrong. A growl coming from some point closer. A shadow between him and the now rising sun. One thing was sure of course, he was being tracked, and probably by something he really didn't want to be tracked by. Were either of the two silenced parts of his brain able to shout, they would have shouted run. The SeeD part directed him to drop the bundle and shift into a defensive stance. It didn't care that he was without a weapon. It didn't care that he was probably out numbered. What it cared about was survival, and running did not give you survival.

Whoever, or whatever as it was, had been following took this as a sign that he was ripe for the picking. He was lunged at and sharp teeth sunk into his arm. A fist was slammed into the muzzle of the large wolf creature that had attacked. The beast yelped in shock and released its grip. It was only a small victory though, for moments later three more of the beasts had appeared and were stalking around him and snarling. They were larger than any wolfs he had seen before in his life, and the ruffs of fur around their heads were like those of lions. These weren't creatures from any place his mind could recall, but that wasn't important at the moment. What was important at the moment was that another one of them was attacking, and he could do not more but react.

Fighting wasn't always a thing ruled by the conscious mind, as Nida found himself proving. His conscious mind was busy trying to see if there was ANTYING like this in any bestiary or histories he'd heard of back home. He was busy wondering just what had happened to him, and blaming it on Odine. He was busy wishing he had his own weapon with him instead of having to fight hand to hand. All the while he was lashing out with punches and kicks, keeping the beasts barely at bay while they slowly, slowly wore him down. What he didn't think about was what kind of trouble he'd be in when he just couldn't move fast enough any more. What he didn't think about was how much longer he really had left.

So he didn't really think about it when one of the beasts behind him yelped and he heard a bit of a 'thud'. His body was too busy trying to keep one that was leaping at him away. Nor did he think about it when he heard a second yelp and saw a flash of yellow and blue from the corner of one eye. He did, though, manage to think about it when the one before him was consumed in a blast of fire, and when he stumbled backwards onto the grass wet from rain and his blood. Unfortunately he didn't have long to think about it, as the final beast was upon him and impaled within seconds of his passing out.


	3. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Yes, more of the story. It's so much easier to write Tuesday thru Friday because them I'm at a job that doesn't matter and I can work on it without getting too distracted. Odd, isn't it? The things I do to keep away from students. How I loathe the students. Students piss me off. When spring break begins I am free! And I'm so very very tired. People take advantage of me and it makes me mad.

* * *

Chapter 2

For a moment, everything was calm as Nida was slowly led to consciousness by a rather suspicious mind. So thankful was he for a soft bed and a warm blanket that it didn't even register to him that they shouldn't be there. In fact, there was no reason in hell that they should be there. His own bed at Garden was lumpy and the blankets rather itchy. In Esthar the bed was nice and firm, just the way he liked it, and the blankets and sheets were all of satin so that when he tossed and turned, which he always invariably did, they didn't move as much with him. But these were only two of the things that went unnoticed by the SeeD in those moments of pre-wakefulness.

The facts began to filter in as his eyes opened though. Wherever he was, he wasn't outdoors. That was a problem because his last memories had been of being outside fighting odd wolves. With that revelation the SeeD sat bolt upright, reaching around for his weapon, just in case those wolves were still around. Of course the sudden movement only served to make him rather dizzy, and moments later he was lying down once more. Of course the foolish action had provided him with more details. Apparently there had been a wet cloth upon his forehead, which now laid upon the covers before him. What was more, there was a small table beside him with a bowl of water and a bottle of some liquid he couldn't identify from the quick actions.

So Nida just rested there for a while, contenting himself to look around at what was visible from his place. From what he saw this was most definitely not Garden or his own home. The walls were a shade of cream that only hospitals should be able to get away with. There was nothing on the walls, and the singular window was covered by a rather frilly set of white curtains. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a chair placed near the bed. Something about the room radiated comfort and safety despite the emptiness, but the part of Nida that was SeeD was already active. He had to get out of here.

While he was very dizzy, the youth slowly slipped from the bed, making sure not to move too fast or make too much noise. His first thought once he was free from the blankets was the most obvious one he could have, 'where are my clothes'. For indeed, Nida had been stripped almost bare by whoever had brought him to this place, and there was no sign of them in the room. Nor were his boots present, and as there was no closet in this room there was not even that obvious place to search. Carefully the young pilot pulled one of the sheets from the bed and wrapped it around his body. When all else failed, a SeeD improvised.

It wasn't long before Nida heard footsteps on the other side of the closed door that separated the room he was in from whatever else there was here. Still in SeeD-mode, he sunk over and pressed himself up against the wall. If the door was opened, he would be behind it, and would have a chance to capture whoever was coming.

Luckily for whoever was on the other side of the door, the other two parts of Nida's brain that the SeeD side suppressed were becoming rather livid. Had this person, or these persons, not taken him in after he was attacked? Did they not give him shelter and a bed? Was there not food and apparently medication? Had someone not tried to break the fever that he could now undeniably feel? Whoever was on the other side of this piece of wood was trying to nurse him back to health. Surely the bandages he now noted on his arms showed that. And hadn't he seen two of the creatures slain by another source?

This indecision did nothing to help the physical strain already placed upon his body, and tired legs caved beneath him. Of course it didn't get much better from there. As if fate was adding insult to injury, the door was quickly opened as his caretaker came to check on the 'thud', causing the door to open enough to strike his poorly placed head. Arms were flung up, despite the stinging pain that now existed, to cover his head. It hurt, a lot, and this was hardly fair.

"Well…" a feminine voice had been saying as the door opened, but it turned into a horrified gasp as the 'thunk' of wood on head reached her. Nida groaned as the voice, now full volume, added to a headache that had suddenly, and unsurprisingly, sprung to life. Could things get any worse?

"Don't you walk away when I'm fuckin' talkin' to ya Shera!" a voice shouted from the hall. Yes, apparently it could.

The woman shushed the man with a gesture and slowly closed the door so that she could kneel by Nida. Her hands, soft and gentle, peeled his fingers, hands and arms away from a tender head. Nida flinched away from her after a time, but only because her fingers had moved from his forehead to inspect a new source of blood. There was a motherly nature about her and it calmed the SeeD enough that he did not struggle against her. His instincts told him that this woman only intended to help.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked, two fingers flashing before his eyes.

"Two," he said, flinching back from their proximity to his eyes. Relaxed or not he still had reflexes that he was bound to, and fingers close to eyes usually meant an attempt to blind him.

"Well, I suppose that is a good sign," the woman chuckled. "As long as you can pull away like that I can assume your neck isn't broken."

The youth groaned and closed his eyes. Great. Just great. She was going to make jokes about it. That was hardly fair, and reminded him of something Seifer was more than likely to do to him. Then again, the sarcasm would also be a Kiros classic, but that wasn't the point. He just wanted pain killers and to get out of this place…

"I guess it would be best to get you fixed up," the female voice said. After a moment he found himself lifted (but with a grunt) into strong arms. The familiar caressing touch of a sleep spell washed over him, and under his breath he swore as his body caved in to the power of the spell. This was just not fair…

--------

For the third time Nida awoke to find himself in an unfamiliar place. First he'd been under that tree, then he'd been in that bland room, and now he was awake, eyes open, frowning at yet another room. This one looked, unlike the previous, to be very lived in. There was a shelf at one side, a dresser against a wall, and a large collection of spears against a rack in the corner. What was more, he wasn't alone.

Beside him sat the woman from earlier, a soft smile upon her face. She wasn't anyone he recognized of course. Her hair was brown and rather long, and pulled back into a pony tail. Her clothes were an odd shade of yellow (though not as bright as Selphie's) and over it she wore a lab coat like Doc K always wore. And to top it off, she had glasses almost identical to the ones Quistis was supposed to wear all of the time.

"Well good morning," the woman said, placing her hands to his chest and pushing him back down onto the bed. "Please don't move. You're not completely well yet."

Now that was obvious to Nida, and he wanted to roll his eyes and respond with something like 'I hadn't noticed', but he just couldn't find it in him to do so. She was, after all, a nice looking woman and she was obviously only trying to help. Besides, if it came right down to it, he could probably over power her.

"Where am I?" he said at last, and was rather alarmed at the way his voice just croaked out. It was painful to speak, and that was never a good sign.

"Rocket Town, in the home of Captain Cid Highwind," she said, placing a hand to his forehead to check his temperature.

Nida had never understood it really, just why women did that. There was, after all, a perfectly good thermometer on the table beside her. The read out from that would be far more accurate than any hand, or any GF based scanning spell that could be used to read his state of health. Of course, the chance was that this woman didn't have a GF at her disposal, but he could seem to remember a sleep spell being placed upon him previously. Just who were these people to have the powers of the Guardians at their finger tips anyway? And damnit shouldn't she just be using that thermometer? He'd feel a lot more comfortable without her hands on him...

"Seems that the fever has finally broken. You should be up and about by tomorrow. You had us worried there for a moment. Sleeping for that long. Cid was about to go get a doctor, or at least Tifa."

All through this Nida was pondering the name she had used. Cid was always a familiar name to him, but it was always attached to 'Headmaster' and 'Kramer', not 'Captain' or 'Highwind'. While it was close, it was far from the same thing. The name didn't ring a bell for any active SeeDs either. But such was just another likely fact in his current theory of the world being messed up. Slowly he was building a pretty good case upon that idea. From the stars themselves seeming to plot against him, to the freaky wolves. Nothing was adding up.

"You've been out for nearly two days now you know. I was so sure that I might have hit you far too hard. Cid said that you'd wake up soon enough. Said he'd seen Cloud take far harder hits to the head with no ill effects, but you know, Cloud has a very thick head, not to mention all that hair to protect him…"

He wanted to tell her to shut up. He wanted to glare at her, roll over and go back to sleep. He wanted to do anything but listen to the words of a woman that obviously wanted to talk and could find no one to talk TOO. But here he was, a guest in someone's house, and she had taken care of him, so it seemed a little rude for him to just say something like that. Still, there had to be a way for him to get her to be quiet. Wait… Two days!?

"Two days?" Nida said, panic obvious. Abandoning his duties was bad. Going missing is bad. Abandoning duties by being missing for two days when doing a personal favor to Squall was horrible! There went all his hard work on getting a SeeD rank A.

"Yes. And you'd been out a whole day before you woke up the first time."

Here the young man groaned. It got worse and worse. "I have to get out of here. I have to go back... Squall is going to KILL me…"

The woman frowned and pushed him back down onto the bed as he tried once more to sit up. "If you start running around before you're really ready to do so, I'll rather sure Cid will kill you."

"Is that a threat?" Nida growled, voice low and dangerous. If he was being threatened there was no way at all that he was staying here.

"Does it have to be?" she responded, adjusting her glasses slightly.

"If he's gonna be like that, then just leave him alone Shera," a voice came from the doorway of the room.

Standing there was what was most likely the blue and yellow blur from days before. The man was neither exactly large or small, but he had a presence. He was THERE in the same way the Seifer and Squall always seemed to be THERE, and for both of their reasons. Something about the presence of this man demanded attention and respect, and he radiated both a very fatherly feeling, and a confidence that was undeniably powerful. At least, he did so as long as he wasn't talking, which the man seemed to enjoy.

"Really, he should be thankful that we took his pathetic ass in. Imagine bein' out there with no weaponry! He was askin' for trouble. No wonder those Nibel Hounds attacked like that."

"But he held them off rather well," the woman, Shera, pointed out. "Surely that counts for something Captain."

So this was Captain Highwind. Nida wasn't sure if he should salute or glare the man down for his attitude. After all, who had given the guy permission to rescue him? Nida could have handled all four of those… Nibel Hounds? Odd name really. Odd like Highwind.

And already his mind was back to the man. He could not, of course, be blamed for that. There was that muscled torso just visible under a light blue shirt, the cocky attitude accented by the cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth, that stupid smile and the goggles on his head. And those were just the highlights of the man's appearance…

"Excuse me," Nida said, using this chance to sit up once more. "Would someone please tell me what is going on?"

"Actually," Cid responded, turning to glare at him, "I think you're the one that should be explainin' things to us. Like who the hell you are, what the hell you're doin' out here, and why the hell you're givin' Shera a hard time. So you best start talkin' or you ain't gettin' no tea."

While the SeeD didn't understand what kind of threat a lack of tea presented, he had no intention of sharing the truth. For all he knew he was in enemy territory and this was all some ploy. Of course it didn't seem likely, because he hadn't been silenced and he could still sense the gentle, sweet voice of Siren echoing around in that little corner of his mind. Wait… that was it. If Siren was still there he still had his magic. And he was always sure to stock a healthy supply of scan spells. Not only could they help you with dealing with foes, but damned if they hadn't always been useful when he was working on his ships.

Nida grew silent for a moment, calling out to the sweet voice and to his magic. While he watched Cid glaring at him on one plane of existence, he sensed the magic swelling within him upon another. And, after a moment and as Cid was drawing closer to him, the scan spells were located. A hand rose before him and there was a pale blue glow before Nida felt the normal rush of knowledge that came with the spell. And what it told him was almost troubling.

This man before him was strong, very much so. Not up to the level of Squall or Seifer, but probably close to Quistis. Magic was obviously not his strong point, but with the scan came a faint echo of a voice much like Shiva's from a large metal bangle set with gems at the man's wrist. Also was sensed a resistance to fire, something that said this man HAD to have a Guardian with him, but Shiva should be off with Squall, should she not? It made no sense at all.

Neither did Cid's reaction to the scan. The blonde paused, and Nida had to assume he was recoiling at the feel of the spell. Scans were rather intrusive after all. But the bewilderment upon the man's face shouldn't be right. This man should have been able to recognize his SeeD uniform, right? And he would have known that SeeDs always carried GFs with them, even if they were un-junctioned. Something was wrong here, very very wrong.

Cid seemed to realize that too, and the man finished his movement to grab Nida sharply by the wrist. The SeeD allowed the hold, as it wasn't too painful and he could break it any time.

"What the hell was that?!" the man demanded, twisting his arm a bit tighter. "I checked you, and you ain't got no materia on ya. No way in hell you should be able to cast scan."

Reflexes took the place of better judgment and with a single quick movement Nida had reversed the hold, leaving Cid's wrist in his grip and twisted at an angle. Luckily Nida had the advantage of being seated to help him break the grip.

"I don't have any materia, whatever it is. And it would be best if you kept your hands from me, Captain."

The word was full of contempt. Nida obviously didn't feel this man had any right to captaincy if he was going to act like that. Demands were not supposed to be made. Requests were. Orders weren't punctuated by pain unless it was absolutely necessary, and this man hadn't gone by that either. After a moment though, Nida released him. After all, the two of them only wanted answers. Maybe they were going a bit far.

"Fuckin' shit," Cid hissed, pulling away once his wrist was released. Some part of Nida couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that he'd made the man react in such a way. This was obviously a person used to being in charge after all. Everyone could do with a sense of vulnerability once in a while.

"I have a few questions of my own, and I believe they hold precedence over yours, sir. Questions like, where am I, who are you, and why am I in this place?"

Both Cid and the woman Shera were quiet for a moment. That could not be good, Nida decided, because the silence was the tense sort. It was like the sort that came in those daytime dramas Selphie loved, the silences they used when someone made this big revelation but you still have a few seconds to fill before the commercial break. Or like Squall's 'are you kidding me' silence. Except there was no annoyance or amusement in it. It was just… quiet.

"Can you tell me your own name?" Cid asked, after some unspoken agreement was reached between him and the woman.

Considering their reaction to his question, Nida decided it was best not to give the whole truth.

"Nidus," he said after a moment. It was close enough that it wasn't really wrong, and Seifer HAD called him Nids once in a while. And Nidus Nidulus. That was his least favorite. It just made no sense. Irvine said it was a bit fitting though, because Nida would have his head in the clouds a lot, and Nidulus sounded like it should be the name of a cloud.

"And where are you from kid?"

"I'm from Balamb," which was true enough because he didn't know his real home town, "And I'm not a kid. I'm twenty-one."

Again there was the silence and the look between the two people who were obviously older than him. What was wrong about his answer? Surely these people knew where Balamb was. Or maybe this was just more of the world being fucked up…

"I ain't never heard of no Balamb, kid," Cid said after a while. "And I've been all over the world."

"Well," Nida countered, rather annoyed at this point, "I've never heard of a Captain Cid Highwind, and I keep up to date on officers of the military across the world."

The statement was true enough. Nida was supposed to keep up to date with such things, but for all he knew there were some that he missed. There were always those with rank who were retired, promoted on the field of battle, or whose rank was given in secret. This could be one such person. He highly doubted it of course, but nothing was actually impossible.

For a third time the silence came, this time mixed with a bit of anger. Apparently the man didn't like the idea that he wasn't instantly recognized by someone. The woman just seemed worried. Maybe she understood what was going on more than the man did. Who knew really, because Nida sure didn't.

"Ya haven't heard of me? Then what about Barret Wallace?"

Nida shook his head. He'd never met anyone like that, and it had never come up in work.

"Vincent Valentine?"

Again the SeeD shook his head.

"Well damnit kid, do ya at least know Yuffie Kisaragi? She's a fucking princess!"

There were no princesses back where he was from, so Nida could do nothing more than frown in annoyance. Were Squall here there would be a silence a man would have to answer too, and he might have pointed out that he was considered a prince in Esthar because he was Laguna's son. But that wasn't at hand here, was it?

"Shit, I KNOW you've got to know who Cloud Strife is. Spike has saved the world, what is it, three times now?"

Nida sighed. "Can we get to the point or not?"

Cid shook his head and grabbed a cigarette. Despite Nida's glaring at the presence of the thing, Cid lit up and took a puff of the cancer stick. Few people back home smoked, it was a rather reckless thing, it could kill you after all.

"What rock have you been living under for the last three years kid?"

He wanted to say that for the last three years he'd been flying, so no rocks were involved. Instead Nida responded with, "Why are you so shocked I don't know these names?"

"Cause we fuckin' saved the world from Meteor, Geostigma, Omega Weapon, and Sephiroth multiple times!"

Nida perked up. There was finally something he understood. Omega Weapon was the name of that beast Squall and the others had slain in Ultimecia's castle. The greatest foe they had faced. He always loved to hear the story about the powerful being that had nearly destroyed the heroes of the world. Part living animal, part machine, the thing had been unstoppable, until Squall.

But this man was claiming to have had a hand in Omega's defeat, and that couldn't be right. Just another piece of information that didn't seem to fit into what Nida knew of the world. Either someone was playing a damn elaborate prank or…

"What year is this?" he suddenly demanded. It all fit. What if this was the world of the future? Or the past? Odine had been working with time compression after all. Chances were that something had gone wrong and he'd been sent to the wrong time. If it was the future there was a chance of him going back, or at least finding out about what happened to his friends. If it was the past…

"Uh, I think it's about 3 PM now," Cid said, thinking for a moment.

"Not the time," Nida sighed in annoyance.

"No, not in the afternoon. PM means Post Meteor. Man, is something wrong with your brain? You'd have to have been dead or something not to know this shit kid."

Now the expression of the blond brightened. "Wait, Shera… You don't think he's got none of that amnesia shit, do ya?"

"I suppose it is possible Captain, but," Shera began, only to be cut off by the boisterous blond.

"Well then, I guess we best be callin' someone with experience in that stuff. Shera, you go and call Reeve, and I'll handle Vince. Ah hell, just call 'em all up. We can make a bit of a reunion out of it, bahamut knows Yuffie's been gunnin' for one."

Nida looked on in bewilderment as Cid continued his conversation with himself. It was as if the man had managed to put the presence of both of them out of his mind. Not that it was surprising. It always seemed the blonds had the ability to do that so much better than other people. They seemed only to only recognize themselves. This man was a lot like Seifer.

"Well Nidus, you're in for a treat. You're going to get to meet the saviors of the world," Cid chuckled, turning and heading out of the room without giving the SeeD a chance to respond.

"Wait…" Nida said, moving to get up, only to be head back by Shera.

"Rushing after him will get you no where," the woman said. "And you're not exactly strong enough to get anything more than that from him. Here, I have some soup for you. I think it's about time you got something into your stomach."

When she held out the bowl Nida was going to refuse, until that was, his stomach protested very loudly. A faint blush reached his cheeks and he accepted the food. "Thank you Mrs. Highwind."

The woman laughed, "Oh no, I'm not Mrs. Highwind. My name is Shera. Cid only acts as if he's my husband. And someone has to take care of him."

That he could understand very well. "Well, I thank you for helping me."

"Don't thank me," she said, standing and still smiling softly. "Cid is the one that saw you being attacked by those Nibel Hounds. He's the one that saved you. I only fixed you up."

With that Nida was left alone in the room with his bowl of soup. The door closed behind the woman as she left and silence filled the room again. The young SeeD just looked down at his bowl of soup and frowned. Squall and his friends had saved the world, together, and he'd helped them. But it was becoming more and more obvious that he wasn't in that world he had known anymore. Just when, or where, he was at the moment was a mystery. Nothing was certain at all. So what was he supposed to do?

Logic said that he should try to lay low and gain knowledge of the land and the people until he could contact base. Paranoia said that he was never going to get back home because these people were going to kill him. His heart, though, said that maybe, just maybe, he should take a step back for a moment and figure out a plan of action. There was no way of knowing if he could go home after all, especially if he had ended up in the past. For all he knew he was back in a time before the success and fall of Centra. A part of him that was a historian really liked that idea, but another part said that wasn't likely. Some of the stars should still look the same that far back, right?

What was he supposed to do now?


	4. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: I think I'm enjoying this story too much. I know what I want to have happen, and some of the scenes plague me all day in my attempts to get them right, but I don't know what order they are going in, or just how I'm getting from point A to point B. I'm still not sure how it's going to go from Cid and Nida wanting to smack each other to how they are in the prologue. I just know they are. The one thing I'm certain of is one of the final twists in the story. Not the FINAL twist of course, but one of them. Penultimate maybe? It's going to be interesting. In fact, when we get to that twist we pretty much catch up to the point where the prologue is written by Nida and come to understand why he is writing his memoirs. And I'm pretty much set on the idea of making a story opposite this. Not sure what it's going to be named, but it's the same story from Cid's side. Just because I want to, so there.

* * *

Chapter 3

While he hadn't remembered feeling sleepy, much less actually falling asleep, who ever did? He did remember waking up of course, as it had happened only moments before. At least this time he hadn't woken up in a place he didn't know. Of course it wasn't his bed at Garden, or between the cool sheets in Esthar, but at least it wasn't yet another new place. He wasn't quite sure how many more he could handle after all.

Through the windows in the small room he could see just enough light to hazard a guess that it was either early in the morning or late at night. Other than that he was quite clueless. His hand moved to his forehead, and finding no temperature he could almost feel the tension melting from him. At least there were the small things that could make life easier, were there not?

Alas, the kind woman that had been there earlier to tend to him was not present, and even that Captain person wasn't around from the hush that had settled over the place. Even after so little contact Nida could tell that this Cid was not the sort that enjoyed things being too quiet for too long if he could help it. And he could obviously help it a good deal. Despite their lack of presence though, Nida didn't really feel like dragging himself from the bed. It was, surprisingly, quite comfortable. The mattress was firm, the sheets cool and soft despite being cotton, and it was up against a wall on two sides. Most people might find that an unimportant fact, but caution was trained into a mercenary, and leaving your back unprotected was a big no-no.

After a moment his eyes cast about, restless for something, anything, to do. True, he didn't want to leave the bed, but he needed to stretch his legs, and his stomach was growling something fierce. And he wasn't even considering the fact that he was parched and that he really needed a bathroom. Finally he noticed it, a single sheet of paper resting upon the seat Shera had been using earlier. Fingers, itching for something to do, darted out to scoop it up. It was something after all.

There wasn't much written, just a short note from Shera along the lines of 'in case you wake up while we're out', directing him towards the bathroom, where he could find some clothes, and telling him about a container of soup in the fridge that could be heated up upon the stove. The sort of note a mother would leave for a sick teen before heading out to work, or so Nida assumed. He had never known his own mother after all. It had just been him and his father for a while, and then all he remembered was Garden.

With the note to guide him Nida abandoned the comfort of the bed. It was a shock though when bare feet hit cold wooden floor and in an instant he was sitting with his feet crossed under his body, glaring at the evil wood. This, he noted to himself, was exactly why he'd insisted upon an apartment with carpeted bedrooms, and why there was always a set of warm and fuzzy white bunny slippers beside his bed at Garden. Those tiled floors could be pure evil if one was summoned to see Squall at four in the morning in the middle of winter, which happened often enough.

After a moment of quick thought the sheets were pulled from the edges of the bed and gathered up around his nearly naked body. His feet could handle the floor until he found some socks, but he disliked looking at his unclothed body. There were far too many scars for him to actually look upon them in pride. Yes, some he earned through hard training with Squall. But others were earned during the war, had memories of good kids dying for things they couldn't understand. There was too much pain in too many of them for him to want to remember, so he tried to stay covered. And somewhere, amid that mixture of modesty and bad memories, there was a small voice wondering if Shera or Cid had been the one to undress him. And that small voice wasn't sure which option it hated more.

Following the instructions on the note Nida hop-skipped his way over to the dresser and started rummaging through drawers. Shera had indicated that he and Cid were about the same size (at least in waist and foot) and that the Captain was willing to part with a set of clothes, socks included, for now. Once socks were retrieved and pulled on in a very hurried manner a set of pants that were a few inches too short for him followed them. What could he expect from a man that wasn't even his six foot? Of course, three years prior and Nida would have fit in them and still had a few inches around his ankles all loose. He wasn't a kid anymore, and he wasn't small either. There were few people in Garden that could look down on him these days… Sadly Seifer was still one of them…

After that Nida found himself pulling on a blue shirt almost identical to the one Cid had been wearing earlier, and felt a little let down that he couldn't quite fill it the same way Cid did. In truth it looked rather bad next to his dark hair and eyes, and worse next to his light skin, but what could be expected? The whole thing smelled a lot like homemade cigarettes, alcohol, motor oil, and some other scent that he just couldn't place. Some kind of bird or another. Chocobo maybe? Could this place have chocobos?

The thought was shaken from his mind, and with sheet still wrapped around him, the man shuffled out of the bedroom and into the hall. He wasn't sure which was more important just yet, food or bathroom. Of course his body made the decisions his mind failed to and socked feet pointed themselves towards the light Shera had said she'd leave on in the bathroom. Apparently several days was a bit of a strain. What a surprise! Odd… Sarcasm actually sounded worse in his head than it did when he would say it out loud. Oh well, little he could do about that.

When he was through with the more demanding bodily function, and washed his hands of course (Nida was a very clean person after all), he made his way to what could pass as a kitchen. The table, stove, and sink were piled with dishes. Apparently in the concern he had generated the household chores had gone neglected. With a sigh Nida set about clearing an area for himself to prepare the soup. Pots and pans, and a battered teapot(?) were set aside for a small pot that he quickly washed in the bathroom sink. The soup from the fridge was scooped in and set to heat up slowly as Nida stacked dishes and set himself about the task of cleaning up. It was the least he could do to repay Shera's kindness at any rate.

One of the things people didn't expect of Garden students was an ability to do the menial tasks needed to run a house on a day to day basis. Most people just assumed that they had their uniforms washed by the cleaning crew and that they ate only at places in Balamb or in the cafeteria. There were, in fact, practical classes for younger students, things one took before they went into the SeeD training regimen, and advanced classes designed to keep the female population happy, as well as help those who would eventually go into long term field work. Students learned everything from replacing buttons to making their own clothes (Nida had failed that final as he had managed to somehow cut his finger open on a single needle), and from boiling water to disguising the scent and taste of powerful poisons using certain dishes or herbs that wouldn't detract from potency (Seifer had learned that sleeping powder was just as effective when baked and fed to unsuspecting underclassmen). While the extent of Nida's skills in most of the lessons had been minimal, he could patch his clothes, prepare simple meals, and clean the giant messes he made in the process like a pro. Though he still did favor take out these days…

Soon enough the dishes had been tamed (and put away as best he could considering the fact that he didn't know the place and every dish seemed dirty) and a hot bowl of soup was resting upon the kitchen table beside a steaming cup of tea. Nida couldn't help but feel the mug had been a nice touch of course. It proclaimed: 'Captain's Cup: Touch and Die' in large block letters, a cute little 'or else' scribbled near the bottom in red. The mug was obviously Cid's, and so it only made Nida want to use it more, mainly because it would manage to upset the annoying man if he returned.

Of course the moment he sat down the front door was banged open and the Captain himself stormed in, oblivious to the guest seated in his chair with his mug and curled up quite happily in his clothes. One of the voices in the back of Nida's head said that the worst possible thing that could happen would happen, and attached a name like Morgan's Law to it. Or maybe it was Megan's Law… Murphy's? … Naw, had to be Morgan's. Knowledge of silly things like that aside, Nida knew that things were going to get very interesting very fast.

Luckily, though for who one could not be sure, Shera noticed Nida before Cid did, and quickly moved between the two men so that she could turn the words on the mug away from Cid. The look on her face was enough for Nida to understand what she wouldn't say, that now was a very bad time to provoke the smaller man. Not that he was trying to provoke Cid, no, not Nida, not at all. Okay, so maybe he was just the littlest bit. It was probably just revenge for the man casting sleep on him previously. At least, he was pretty sure it had been the man. Shera seemed a bit too nice for such an underhanded tactic.

"Good morning Captain, or is it good evening? There don't seem to be many clocks here," he said, keeping his tone conversational before taking a sip of the hot tea. Inside he could do nothing more than smile at the victory he earned when Cid practically jumped out of his boots and spun to face him.

For a moment Cid seemed torn between shouting at him and grumbling, so plain were those choices written on the face of the blond man. Instead he settled on retrieving the pack of cigarettes from his goggles and lighting a new one off of a barely surviving one in his mouth. A serious chain-smoker indeed. There was something tense about the action, as if the man was either very worried, or very annoyed, and holding it back. Then again, with Nida wrapped up in the man's sheets and wearing his clothes, it was quite likely that he was the cause.

"It's evening," Cid mumbled around his new smoke. "Almost sundown."

Shera quickly moved to Cid to calm anger that the man was obviously holding back with some skill. "Don't worry Captain. I'm sure she's fine. You know Miss Yuffie, she gets side tracked rather easily, but she can handle anything there is out here."

Cid nodded, and Nida watched the pair for a few more moments before deciding to cut into the conversation.

"Would this Miss Yuffie be the one you mentioned before?" This was followed by a sip at the hot broth which did so much more to warm him than clothes, sheets and tea combined. Chicken noodle just like mom used to make it, or so he assumed.

Again the blond nodded. "Yeah, that'd be her. Damn pest if ya asked me, but she's one of us, and she's likely to be helpful dealin' with…"

All three of them knew what Cid had trailed off from saying. 'Helpful dealing with you' was that Cid was going to say. But the fight that had been there earlier seemed to have faded with the sun and the man looked very tired. Well, weary was more of the word. Something in that weariness seemed familiar to Nida, something like what they had all felt after the war. It was the weariness that came with having trouble sleeping because you were sure that if you closed your eyes for longer than a minute the world was going to go to shit all over again. Maybe that explained why the man had obviously given up his own bed for Nida. Could he possibly be having trouble sleeping?

So Nida just nodded and sipped at the soup again. It was at this point that Shera, intent on paying attention to something other than the men in the room came to notice that the place wasn't in the state that she'd left it in but two hours before. Trained to handle reading Squall, a man who seemed to lack the facial muscles needed for expressions most of the time, he easily read the emotions flashing through her eyes. There was shock, wonder, and then disapproval. Why was obvious, he was her little patient, someone she could nurse, something Cid obviously wouldn't allow if he was ill, and he was cleaning up after her! He wanted to chuckle and assure her it was alright, that it had given him time to think, but before he could she had placed her fists to her hips and frowned.

"And just what do you think you'd accomplish other than wearing yourself out with this Nidus? You're supposed to be resting. I said that you should just microwave the soup and go back to bed."

"No offense was meant Miss Shera," Nida said easily, smiling up at her with what Kiros had referred to as the 'trust me' smile. "I was feeling rather restless. Needed to keep my hands busy and such. And soup is always better when heated upon an oven."

She nodded in agreement before sighing and setting about cleaning what dishes he had dirtied while preparing his meal, a single spoon, a pot, and a ladle. Cid, on the other hand, just sat down across from him and stole the mug of tea. Nida decided against protest and resumed eating until Cid chose to break the silence.

"She might be annoyin', but she's right," Cid said after a while, switching cup of tea for his cigarette for what had been the third time since sitting. "You could get all sick again, and then how the fuck am I supposed to get to the bottom of all this shit?"

"With a shovel I suppose," was the response as the youth finished his soup. Apparently even he could get in good bits of sarcasm once in a while.

For a moment Cid stared at him, and Nida was afraid he had overstepped some unspoken line, when Cid burst out laughing. A hand slapped the table as the blond shook with mirth. Well, less mirth and more exaggerated amusement. He needed it though, and that was obvious, so Nida didn't take it from him. When the laughter finally stopped Cid looked at the mug and frowned.

"You've got some balls usin' my cup kiddo."

"Didn't know I was being forbidden use it. Next time write that down." There was no hostility behind it. Nida knew there would be no real joy in gaining the upper hand in a verbal battle with this man when he was in such a state. It would be like challenging Zell to a silence contest when Seifer was in the room, or asking Selphie to sit still. There was no real purpose served in it.

"I will," Cid responded, but they were only words with nothing at all behind them. Shera stopped the whistling of the teapot and soon had a hot cup set before Cid.

"I have to be heading home now Cid," Shera said, breaking the silence for a moment. "Can you handle yourself tonight?"

The blond nodded and waved her away. "Yeah, I can do it woman. Get your lazy ass out of here."

Nida was surprised at the affection in the tone, but he knew he shouldn't have been. Seifer mumbled such things to Zell, but it was obvious that the two didn't actually hate each other anymore. Of course they had loathed each other once, but after saving each other multiple times, camaraderie had sprung up. They teased each other for no real reasons anymore, must like Cid was doing with this Shera.

Soon the woman was gone and Nida was left alone with Cid. Hours ago he wouldn't have wanted such a thing, but at this point Nida wasn't quite sure why he shouldn't deal with the blond himself. Sure, the man was like an older Seifer, though without the obvious talent to back it up, but Seifer proved to be a good enough person if you knew him for long enough. And that look about him, that weariness, it was something he could relate to.

Because of that weariness he saw, Nida finally chose to speak up as he stood with the now empty bowl to place it in the sink.

"You know, Captain, the world isn't going to suddenly stop if you give yourself the chance to rest. I'll see to that."

And once the words were said the SeeD didn't wait around. He moved straight towards the bathroom. A good hot shower was what he needed right now, and he did not intend to miss it in the slightest. His whole body ached, half from the illness he had over come, half from the injuries he had sustained. The door was closed, and locked, behind him and water adjusted before Nida shed the clothes he wore. There was a moment, though, when he held the shirt close and just inhaled the scent that was the Captain. He couldn't explain the all the odd feelings it dredged up, but he had to admit that the feelings were there. There was some comfort in that smell, a sense of security. It was like the smell of his machines back home in some way.

When he realized what he was doing, Nida quickly tossed the shirt aside and climbed into the shower. It was wonderful to feel the water washing over his skin. The water was so hot that his skin turned red, but he didn't much care. All that mattered was that it was hot, and that he felt clean, really clean, for the first time since waking up under whatever tree that had been.

Thoughts turned to areas that they'd refused to go while he'd been washing dishes. Sure, he'd thought all about how he could get home, just where he might be, when he might be, what all might have gone wrong with Odine's work, but he hadn't let himself think of home or the people he'd left there. It wasn't quite like he missed them, but there was a guilty pang in his thought that came whenever his thoughts turned to Squall, or Seifer, or Kiros. If as much time as his calculations suggested had passed, he'd been away from anywhere between five days and a week. Squall would have reported him AWOL, Seifer would be making some kind of remarks about him getting nabbed again, and Kiros… He'd promised Kiros he'd only be a few hours.

Part of him wondered if he was in a coma and this was all just some dream his mind was playing for him. Another part suggested it was death that he was buried in, and that his spirit was so restless that it made up things to entertain himself. There was even suggestions that maybe this was all just in his mind. Maybe he was just some mental patient who had escaped from somewhere and all the memories he had were just delusions. None of the options were pretty really, and just thinking about them left him rather weak in the knee.

After a while Nida lowered himself to crouch in the tub, letting the water from the showerhead trickle over him. He wanted to go home, so much. But he refused to let that get to him. Above all other things, Nida was a SeeD. He could handle any situation the world threw at him, even if it meant he might never get to go home. A good SeeD controlled themselves, their emotions, and the situation, and he was a good SeeD. He wouldn't let himself be anything less.

Under the scalding water he waited, waited until he was in control enough to do what must be done. Then everything was business. Hair was washed, a body cleaned, tension as relaxed away as he could get it with all of this frustration. When he was done a large fluffy towel quickly dried him off and he looked over the injuries he had sustained. Apparently while the people had sleep spells, they hadn't though him worthy of curative ones. With a sigh he reached out to the sweet voice of Siren and the spells she protected for him. Slowly skin knitted itself back together and some of the ache relaxed, but it did take a bit out of him. Curing always did that. It was more strain on the body than offensive spells, as one had to speed up their own natural healing. It was all rather complex…

Soon new, soft pink skin covered what had been injured, and Nida carefully pulled on the clothes. Even though he was having trouble standing he kept going. Falling over would not be accepted until he was in bed. Until then he had to keep going because if he didn't he would break down, and that he couldn't handle, not just yet.

When he opened the door he wasn't expecting to be faced with the rough looking blond, but there was Cid, waiting. He looked utterly serious and very impatient. Apparently he had not liked the fact that Nida had walked off without answering whatever question he had wanted to ask. Maybe what he'd said had not been a good place to leave whatever conversation they hadn't been having.

"What did you mean?" Cid demanded. Then there was a bit of redness in the man's face. Nida followed Cid's eyes and realized he hadn't put on the shirt yet. Wonderful. His chest was far worse than his legs when it came to scars, and everything from burns to long cuts would be visible. Of course it didn't occur to Nida that Cid had likely seen him shirtless before. It probably didn't because of the way Cid was looking at him. It made him rather uncomfortable. He wouldn't be surprised if he was red in the fact himself.

"What do you mean what do I mean, kid?"

"When you said that you'd see to it? If somethin' happened…"

"I could handle it," Nida said, quickly pulling the shirt on and pushing past Cid. "I could have handled those wolves on my own as well. And stop calling me kid."

With that Nida fled to the bedroom, which wasn't very far away. He didn't much care that he was hiding out in Cid's room, or that the man had a good reason for questioning him. Nor did he care that he was almost panicking while he leaned against the door. What he did care about was how his heart was beating far too hard, far too fast, and that odd feeling in his stomach had come back. It made no sense at all, and yet his stomach was doing flip-flops. Like if he let Selphie fly the Rag because he had some other matter to attend to for a moment. Like he'd felt when he took in the scent of the shirt.

Things weren't supposed to happen like this, right? He'd utterly hated the guy how long ago? Sudden kinships didn't happen. His mind was just trying to latch on to someone that was a lot like someone he knew. Anything that was familiar for his foundering mind was vital right now. It was nothing else. Just an old attraction for Seifer conjured up by a similar blonde. Nothing else at all.

By the time he got into bed he'd actually convinced himself that it had been just that.

--------

Yet again Nida awoke in a bed that was in no way his that stood in a room that was no where near Balamb or Esthar. It was truly growing annoying at this point, but there was nothing he could do but grit his teeth and bear it. Light was slowly filtering in through the window and his body protested at the early hour it assumed it to be. Of course, his internal clock seemed to be adjusting to local time, so it might just be right in this case.

The man slowly pushed himself upright and frowned down at himself, still clad in the clothes from the night before. Not that there was much else for him to have done but to go to sleep in them, but it still didn't feel right. It was bad enough he was sleeping in another man's bed, but in another man's clothes…

His train of thought was cut short as the sound of snoring reached his ears. Nida's eyes quickly darted to a form huddled in the chair, which was now closer to the door. Sitting there, head bowed, arms crossed over his chest, was the Captain. Apparently the man had come in at some point. Understandable of course, he was the man's guest, but there was that second bedroom he had seen, had been in. Did Cid really have to watch him sleep?

It was a question Nida didn't want answered just yet, so he carefully snuck from the bed and out of the room past Cid, not bothering to fetch new clothes. The last thing he wanted was to deal with the blond just yet. There were things he had to think about first, and a world he needed to go out and see.

Luckily Nida had noticed his boots the night before, resting next to the door. They were hauled on over Cid's socks, and the legs of Cid's pants were pulled over the high tops. But when Nida's hand closed over the doorknob, he suddenly couldn't find his resolve. He had no clue what could be on the other side of that door. Sure, Cid and Shera had said they were in a place called Rocket Town, but Nida had seen areas of three houses called towns before. This could be the middle of no where for all he knew. And the last thing he wanted to do was run into even more people than he had already. Cid was a handful on his own.

So the front was abandoned and for a while the man wandered aimlessly through the small house. Near the room he had first awakened in with its sterile walls was a room with more junk in it than Nida could shake a stick at. The back wall wasn't even painted, implying that the other room had once been a part of this larger room.

He knew better than to go through the junk, really he did, but knowing better and abstaining from acting were two very different things. Curiosity got the better of him and a large photo album that was carefully perched atop a mountain of boxes was retrieved.

Most of the pages turned out to be blank actually, but the ones that weren't told a bit of a story on their own. There were images of a far younger Cid Highwind, maybe even Nida's own age, working happily on some project or other, shaking his wrench at the camera holder in a threatening manner. There were others of him standing proudly by a small plane painted in bold pink and blue. Those quickly gave way to other sorts of images though, with a rougher Cid, still grinning, standing next to a large group of people or playing with some small kids. It was the image of the group that interested Nida though. He had a picture a lot like it back home… A picture with the other heroes of the war. With all of them in 'uniform', which were just casual clothes for them, and their weapons close at hand. Just like these people…

The album was placed aside after another moment of staring. Who was he to invade the privacy of another person like that? There were a lot of answers to that in his head, among them the fact that he was a SeeD looking for information, but none of them really justified it. So he carefully set things to how they were before he'd come into the room and he let his feet guide him to yet another part of the house.

It was a door, plain and simple, at the back of the house that drew him. Would have been like any other door in the house were it not for the fact that there was a poor excuse for a lock on it and a spear leaning against it that was a lot like those in Cid's room. Another way out of the house. Nida didn't have much experience with back doors, but what he did when it came to actual houses usually resulted in a small backyard or something that was a bit separate from the rest of the city or town around it. This was a chance he was more willing to take.

As the door opened to his touch and he caught a breath of fresh, spring air, he decided this would not be something he could regret. A cool morning breeze brushed his cheek, luring him out into a fenced off area. The reason for such precautions was obvious instantly of course. In the middle of the area, pointed towards a large gate, was the horribly painted, pink and blue plane. It wasn't much compared to what he knew back home, but it was enough to almost bring tears to his eyes. This was something he knew.

The thing was, compared to the vehicles he handled, rather archaic. There were propellers on the wings, things that hadn't been used in Estharian or Galbadian designs for at least fifty years. But he'd seen enough of the old things to appreciate the thing for what it was, a classic beauty. There was a whole three seconds of hesitation before he made his way to the 'Tiny Bronco' (as the wings proclaimed in more horribly chosen colors). His fingers brushed eagerly over the cold metal of the wings, reveling in the feel so much that he just closed his eyes to give himself a chance to experience it. It wasn't the most graceful thing, nor as efficient and deadly as his Ragnarok, but it was still amazing. Just by touching it he could almost taste the skies it had soared through.

For a while he just looked over the bird, making note of the features that were practical and probably stylish enough to keep Cid's eye. While it didn't have the look of a sea bird, there were salt water stains on the lower body, whispering of a story that he so desperately wanted to know. The cockpit was farther forward than he would have liked it, and there were a few small cuts in the metal of the wings, possibly from attack by a large airborne creature?

Once an access panel to the main engine was found Nida had it open and his hands in the guts of the thing. All old parts, outdated and pointless, but charming in their old fashioned style. When he noticed a few loose wires he frowned through, and had his own tool belt been close he would have gone at the girl with such a will. But he had neither the tools nor all the knowledge he'd need for something this basic. When one dealt with Gardens and space ships that doubled as airships… well… something as basic as this could be confusing without guidance.

"She's a beaut', ain't she?" came Cid's voice from where Nida assumed the door was. He'd gotten so caught up in the plane that even his normal sense of direction had been thrown off. As had his internal clock apparently, for the sun wasn't just showing over the horizon anymore, and his stomach was demanding its breakfast. The pilot jumped and quickly whirled towards the voice, angry that he'd been caught off guard by the blond a second time already, but quite happy he was here so that he could explain the Tiny Bronco.

"Very much so," he responded, almost surprised by the awe in his own voice.

"Bet ya've never seen nothin' like her before," the Captain continued, making his way towards Nida and the plane. "Built her myself. Well, more of fixed her up. Used to take her out twice a day…"

"Used to?"

"Yeah. After she crashed into the ocean, she just didn't fly the same. Can't seem to get her in the sky again. Poor girl has been grounded for three or so years."

"Pity," Nida said, almost mourning for the plane, and Cid. Pilots always had a kinship with a plane that they put that much time into. Once or twice Selphie had accused him of exaggerating when he'd insisted that the Rag didn't fly right for her, but he knew that the old girl preferred his gentle touch to her rushed directions. You didn't just point the Rag and hope she got there in one piece. You had to coax the good flight from her. She was, after all, older than he was. One had to respect a lady of that kind of age.

"You fly?"

All Nida had to do was smirk in response. It was a universal thing, the silent language of pilots. Once you knew that another person was a pilot it was a lot easier to read them. It explained how Cid had slept so easily in such a bad position. Pilots were said to be able to sleep anywhere, any time and through any thing. Nida was pretty sure he'd proved it once or twice. He was, after all, the only one he knew actually capable of sleeping through Selphie's little jaunts out with his lady.

"I fly," he threw in anyway, turning to smile at the grounded plane. "Never flown anything like her through. Always wanted to have a chance to though…"

"I'd offer ya a ride, but… Well, she just can't handle it no more. I just can't bear the thought of putting her out to pasture though. Old girl kinda saved my life, and the world in some part."

Pilots were a special thing, and they had their own special set of beliefs. Nida knew that very well. There were men that named their cars and cried if they got scratched. There were people who treated their motorcycles with such tender loving care that the things never really got a taste of the road. There were even boaters that named their boats but didn't put their mind or heart into doing so. True pilots weren't like that though. Their planes were their ladies. If she was grounded, even if you found another bird, part of you was grounded as well. And he couldn't handle seeing another pilot grounded like that.

"She's got some lose wires here… Can you get me some needle nose, and maybe a wire cutter?"

It was almost noon before the two stopped their work on the plane, and even that was only because there had suddenly been a hyper-active blur appearing out of no where to tackle Cid to the ground and proceed to lecture him on not escorting her into town. Nida, arms still deep in the wiring of the Tiny Bronco merely stared on in wonder as the blonde slowly extracted himself from the pin of the young woman. Once more several parts of his mind were at an odds as to what to do. He could help Cid up, but that would get the man more covered with oil and grease than he already was, for Nida was almost black up to the elbow from their previous work with the engines. He could just let the man founder as he was doing. There were many things he could do, but eventually he settled for removing himself from the plane and carefully holding his arms at his sides so that he wouldn't further dirty the borrowed pants.

"Damnit Yuffie, get the hell off of me," Cid bellowed before finally giving one last heave and shoving the girl off of him. At the same time he was smiling, obviously happy to see her.

So this was the girl, Yuffie Kisaragi, that Cid had called a Princess and expected him to know. Why he was baffled as plain to Nida now though. She had an exotic look about her, not your normal Caucasian. There were some people that looked like them in Esthar, people who could trace their heritage back to the ancient people of Centra, who were all supposed to have had dark hair and eyes and all that. Nida supposed his parents could probably trace their line back to Centra, but he'd never known them to check. Cid had obviously mistaken him for being from wherever this Yuffie girl was from. In that case he could understand the confusion he had caused. If he was from the same place as her, he should have known her because she was princess. But he wasn't and he didn't. No getting around that.

"So Cid, what made you decide to get everyone together all of a sudden? You know, Reeve isn't all that happy. He's got some project or other on the side of cleaning up the mess Chaos and Omega made. Taking days out of his busy schedule is like a sin you know."

"Yeah yeah," Cid grumbled as he stood. "I know. I expect he's going to like, try docking my pay or something."

"You aren't paid," Yuffie pointed out with a cheerfulness that wasn't as helpful as she probably assumed it was.

"Yeah, well neither are you, damn pesky ninja," the grumbling continued as the blonde made his way past Nida towards Shera. "You're fuckin' late girl. Me and Shera were out there for three hours last night waitin' for ya."

"You know how it gets. I got caught up in…"

Nida expected that the pause would come at any time. It was really only a matter of moments before the girl noticed him after all. But now that he had the majority of her attention he was almost uncomfortable. He wished Cid had taken her around the other side of the plane instead of straight past him. He wasn't even sure if he should bow or introduce himself or what.

"Oooooh!" Yuffie said, rushing around him in a circle to look the SeeD over. "I've never seen you before. You're not some kid that got lost are ya? Saw Cid's plane and thought you'd come to look. He's a cruel task master you know. You should run away."

"Damnit Yuf!"

"No," Nida said quickly, very nervous and shifting from one foot to another. "That isn't really what happened…"

"What part of Wutai are you from? Or your folks?" she continued, seeming to ignore everything he was saying, and the swearing of Cid in the background.

"I'm not from Wutai."

"Well of course you are! You look a lot like one of my cousins actually…"

"Yuffie!" Cid barked. He had already come back to her side, and a large hand closed around a single slender arm. "Get your damn ass inside and leave the kid alone. He's having a rough enough time without you annoying the hell out of him."

"I'll say," she countered, pulling away, "He's putting up with you."

Nida could sense the fight brewing over his presence, and was about to try to calm the pair before a different interruption than he had intended beat him to it. His stomach chose that moment to protest, very loudly, that it had been waiting around for over six hours for food and that it wasn't going to wait any more. The young princess and the pilot both turned to look at his stomach, and Nida turned a very vibrant shade of red. This was just going to be a perfect day, wasn't it?


	5. Chapter 4

Author's Notes: This chapter gave me some trouble in the beginning, if you'd believe it. Nida and Yuffie just didn't seem to want to get along. But I think I've got the hang of it now.

* * *

Chapter 4

The scent that met Nida's nose when he reentered the house was enough to send an already embarrassing loud stomach into overdrive. By the time he had reached the kitchen Nida could have sword that the growling could be heard all over the village. It didn't help that Yuffie chuckled at every growl. Still, as Cid had not eaten yet, he didn't seem amused, which was a small victory. Neither of them had much noticed the passage of time while working on the Tiny Bronco. It always seemed to get like that when you worked on something you loved with someone who loved it as much as you did.

"Looks like you found someone as silly as you Cid," the girl laughed. "Never thought there would be another person stupid enough to miss a meal for a beat up old piece of junk."

"She's not a piece of junk," Nida nearly hissed, his words perfectly in time with Cid's own protests to the same idea.

"Woah, woah," she said, holding her hands up before her in a defensive way. "No need to bite my head off about it all. Can't you take a joke?"

There was silence from the pair, obviously still upset about the insult to the little plane. Meanwhile Shera was already bustling around the kitchen to prepare a meal for the two men and the newest guest. The scent of bacon hung heavily in the air and the sound of her slicing of a large tomato kept a pretty nice rhythm to some music that no one else could hear. Nida couldn't help but think that the way she handled the large knife almost made it seem as if she had been born with it in her hand.

He would have kept watching her were it not for Cid moving past him to seat Yuffie at the small table. Once the young woman was seated Cid pointed to the seat opposite her, encouraging Nida to take it. As subtle as Cid thought himself to be, Nida saw right to the heart of the matter. They wanted to question him, wanted to give the girl a chance to look him in the eyes, not that he was sure that it would help much. The only human lie detector he knew had warmed his bed for a night after all. Still, they were going to try it, and he wasn't going to attempt to dissuade them from their efforts. They'd only get their answers once he got his.

"Well, Mister Nidus," Yuffie said once he sat down after washing his hands in the kitchen sink, "would you mind answering a few questions for me?"

"Of course, Lady Kisaragi," he responded, tone sweet and a gentle smile carefully set in place, "I only hope my answers satisfy you more than they did Captain Highwind."

Over the years Nida had come to know that when dealing with people of rank in an official capacity meant that you had to treat them in a bit of a detached manner. Nothing could be taken personally, and you couldn't allow them to feel offended. So he'd developed a way of handling those that were above him whenever they would take their little official mantle upon their shoulders. His tone, his words, even that little smile were all just parts of that attitude that kept him from trouble in most situations. After all, he'd managed to deal with both Laguna and the President of Galbadia in one night like this.

For the effort all he got from Yuffie was a bit of a chuckle (not to mention a bewildered look from Cid. He was good at getting those). Apparently she saw straight through the act.

"Well, I believe that leaves a few of my questions answered already."

There were several seconds then that the two just stared each other down and the line was drawn on both sides. She wasn't going to let him leave a question unanswered, and he wasn't going to give her all the answers she was looking for. It was a look he'd seen passed between political rivals on several occasions when other people were watching for hostile words or anything that could be sold to the press. But it was a civil understanding. More ground rules might even had been laid down were it not for Cid.

"Like?" the blond demanded, frowning at first Nida, then Yuffie.

"For one thing, Nidus here knows my position back home, which I assume is due to you Cid. For another, he's dealt with people in my position before, and I don't scare him."

"Anything else?"

Nida answered this time, smiling softly, "Of course. We've come to an understanding that I'm not allowed to call her 'Lady' anymore."

"The mere fact that he even used that shows he's never set foot in Wutai," she continued, smiling widely. Apparently she did not get to speak down to the chain-smoking pilot very often.

"And why would ya say that Yuf?"

"No one back home would dare to call me 'Lady' to my face, unless my father was in the room."

"Well then, don't bother me until you've gotten some real answers from the kid Yuffie."

"I didn't bother you. You bothered us," she countered, turning to smile at Shera as the woman set a BLT before her. "Thanks Shera."

"Any time my dear," the older woman responded before setting food before the two men and sweeping out of the room. She was not to be involved in this.

Once she was out of earshot Yuffie rattled off in a language Nida did not even remotely recognize. One thing he was horrible at was languages, failed every exam he had taken. Luckily those courses hadn't been vital towards his success and graduation. Unfortunately it meant that he always had difficulty when he was dealing with Odine. Apparently the man was as bad at the common language as Nida was at foreign ones.

There were a few more moments of apparent rambling before Yuffie trailed off and sighed. "That is another one down. You can't speak a word of Wutain. Tell me Nidus, were your parents Wutain?"

How was he supposed to answer that? Of course they weren't, they couldn't be from here could they? Then again, he didn't know them. Hadn't ever.

"I don't think they were, but I can't be sure. I'm an orphan."

From the look on Yuffie's face she wasn't quite sure if she should give him a big hug or sigh. Finally she settled for the former and reached over the table to wrap her arms around his neck.

"Oh, you poor thing! That is just so horrible! When did you lose them?"

There were questions he didn't want to answer. There were questions he didn't know how to answer. And there were questions he just couldn't answer. Somehow this one fit into all three of the categories. He wasn't sure why that was, he just knew that was how it was.

"I really don't want to talk about it. Could we move on?"

Yuffie recoiled from the ice that he knew was in his voice. He'd never really known anyone, save Squall and Rinoa, who really knew their parents. Most of the children in the Gardens were either orphans, or didn't talk about their parents. It was usually a taboo topic.

"Of course… One last thing, Nidus… what's your real name? And please don't think me as gullible as Cid here. He's a good guy and all, but he wouldn't know a fake name if it bit him in the butt."

That was the one question he hadn't expected, and Nida was actually thrown for a loop. "My name is Nidus…"

"Listen," Yuffie sighed, raising a hand to silence Cid before he could speak up. "You're not a fool, and I'm not a fool. If you don't want to tell me your name, then I will accept it, but I don't like being lied to. I've had stuff like that told to me many times before. I might not be as quick on the uptake as others, but every time I said the name you gave, you actually seemed to hesitate for a moment. You knew I was talking to you, but it was as if you were expecting something else. I guess you don't have to use aliases a lot."

The SeeD sighed and leaned back in his chair. "It's Nida. Nida Nomura."

"Well, Mister Nomura, it's a pleasure to meet you," Yuffie said with a smile, holding out her hand to him. There was a moment of hesitation before he took it with a smile.

"The pleasure is all mine Yuffie."

It was a good afternoon, punctuated by a damn good BLT.

--------

Sundown had hit before Yuffie had left the house for the night. Once Cid had gotten over the initial stumbling over Nida's name things had gone smoothly. Yuffie had attempted to help the two work on the Tiny Bronco, but she was as good with that as they were with understanding the Wutain curses she managed to spew out every several minutes when she dropped something or set them back an extra ten minutes. And after a nice dinner of pot roast (Nida had never had such a wonderful meal) Cid had gone to escort Yuffie to the inn for the night.

Left to his own devices Nida had done the dishes, found a beer in the fridge, and headed out back to check on Cid's Lady. They hadn't actually gotten anything new done. Actually, since Yuffie began to help they'd actually been put back to about where they had begun in the morning. Not that Nida had minded so much. He hadn't had the chance to work with someone who knew a bird like this before. Cid knew every inch of his baby, even if he wasn't always sure how to repair things that went wrong. Nida had learned so much about old fashioned aviation just from listening to Cid explain how certain things should have been working if they weren't broken. And the company hadn't been half bad either.

With beer in hand the young pilot climbed nimbly onto the plane to rest upon a wing. Cid had, just to prove a point on the power of his baby, jumped up and down on the wing for a whole five minutes, and the sight of a man like him doing something as stupid as that had sent both Nida and Yuffie into fits of hysterical laughter. Now Nida stretched himself out on the wing and sipped at the chilled beer. The sun had set and the stars were slowly coming into view. They were still not his stars. This was not his sky. None of this was his home.

"Yo, kiddo, you out here?" came Cid's voice some time after Nida finally managed to finish of his beer.

"Up here," the SeeD almost cooed, a hand waving over the edge of the wing to show Cid where he was. He was very bad at handling his alcohol. It had been a cause for amusement at several parties.

"Why you up there Nida?"

"Thinkin'," was the response.

"What ya thinkin' bout?"

"Home."

"What is it like… where you're from? That Balamb place."

"Kinda like this, 'cept my ship is there. My home. My friends. Everythin' I know."

There was silence for a bit before Cid leaned against the side of the plane and stared up at the stars as well. At least, that was what Nida assumed he was doing. His mind was kind of out of it at the moment, so there were a lot of assumptions flying around in his head.

"Tell me about your ship."

It was a safe topic, and Nida knew it. Something that he could talk about without getting himself in a worse mood. Didn't matter how sad he was, or how bleak the future could be, just thinking about the Ragnarok made him cheer up.

"She's beautiful Cid," he said after a few minutes, his voice holding the utmost reverence. "Sleek, strong, and a perfect shade of crimson. I don't know how else to put it. She's just…"

"Right?"

Nida nodded, not realizing that Cid wouldn't be able to see the small gesture.

"When you think about her, not much else matters?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

Were it summer there would have been the sound of crickets to fill the air, or something other than the silence. There wasn't even a breeze to stir up the leaves in the trees. Nida had to make do with the sound of Cid carefully hauling himself up so that he could, presumably, get a good look at Nida.

"Can't handle your liquor, can ya kid?"

There was a smile as Nida slowly lifted his head. He could actually look Cid in the eyes now. Not that it was that important. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could see those bright blues. Were he sober, that might have been a scary thought.

"Not a damn drop."

"Come on then," Cid said reaching out to grab his arm and haul him into a sitting position. "Time to get your drunk ass inside. It's supposed to rain tonight. Don't need ya getting another fever on my watch."

Nida agreed and slowly got to his feet, relying heavily on Cid's tiny bit of support to keep him from falling and getting seriously hurt. Of course that didn't help for long, and Nida hadn't even made it to where Cid was before he started to topple sideways. While he fell from the wing he didn't hit the ground, instead finding himself held loosely in the strong arms of the blond. Cid just smirked and shook his head.

"Ya know what Nomura? You ain't allowed near my beer again. Got it?"

"Yes sir, Captain," Nida giggled, waiting for Cid to release him enough that he could stand on his own. Once his feet were situated below him and he was leaning heavily on Cid, Nida made his way towards the house. Without the strong from of the other man he wouldn't have made it though.

Getting two people through a hall meant only for one at a time was quite a task, one the tipsy Nida was not helpful in accomplishing. Every third step seemed to result in the pair running into a wall or something. By the time Cid dumped the younger man into a bed Nida had earned a whole set of new bruises. He didn't notice of course, far too intent upon cuddling into the bed.

"Oh no ya don't kid," Cid grumbled, shaking him a bit, "ya ain't goin' to sleep in those old clothes again..."

Sadly, the reaction that came with Cid attempting to tug the shirt off of Nida was explosive. Despite the fumbling that he'd been doing before, NIda's hand flashed out with amazing accuracy, and fingers closed around Cid's wrist. Without really realizing what he was doing, the SeeD's grip tightened. It wasn't until Cid winced and pulled away that Nida's hand fell limply to the matress. The situation had sombered him up very quickly.

"Cid, I..." the youth began, frowning, but he was cut off.

"What, afraid I'm going to take advantage of you?"

Honestly, Nida didn't think Cid would, and he felt oddly sad about that. "No, it's just..."

"Everyone has their scars kid. They ain't always visible, but they leave their marks on us. You survived though, and they are proof of that. Never be ashamed of them. No man is more alive than one with scars to show it."

In the silence that followed Cid helped Nida out of the clothes he'd been wearing since the night before. In silence the man tossed the now dirty shirt and pants towards a hamper. In silence Cid helped a body that was shaking between sheets. And in silence Nida pulled the other man close, brushing his lips against those of the blond.

The action surprised Nida of course, as much as it probably did Cid. In fact, by the time Cid had pushed him away, eyes wide with shock, Nida was only just beginning to realize what he had done. By the time Cid was at the door Nida only just realized that Cid had pushed him away. When Cid was finally gone, a thick wooden door between them, Nida was only just beginning to question why he had done what he had.

For a while he laid there staring at the ceiling, but there were no answers to be found there. All Nida knew was that he'd done something unthinkably wrong, something he couldn't really explain away. Sure, he could plead loneliness, he could blame unbearable homesickness, he could even go so far as to say it was because of the alcohol, but it wouldn't be true. Nothing he said, thought, or did, changed the reality of the action.

Before a restless sleep settled over him, the SeeD had made up his mind: tomorrow he was leaving.

--------

_A warm summer sun smiled down upon Balamb, the Garden radiant in the light as if it was some little bauble. The light twinkled happily off the gold and blue tings that encircled the grounds and ringed the top of the building. All of the old grounds and water features had been reinstalled since the war and the sound of flowing water and droning bees filled the air. But that was where the similarity of the school he had known and the one before him ended. No students lingered in the sun, no combat classes were being held in the open, and not a single soul seemed to stir. The more that Nida looked upon the place, the less like home it looked and felt. Grass and hedges were over grown, the waters were murky and smelled of swamps, and the pristine building seemed to be falling apart. Everything about the place warned him to stay away, but nothing in him could. This was the only home he'd ever really known._

_Each step the SeeD took seemed to pull him further and further away from the Garden he knew even though each step brought him deeper and deeper inside. His boots on the stone floors echoed not only in the halls, but in himself. No matter how far he went, there was no change in the emptiness, the wrongness, the feeling of death that permeated the place. So it came as no surprise when the elevator didn't work and he was forced to use the stairs in the dormitory area to get first to the classrooms and then office of the headmaster._

_Squall was exactly where Nida knew he would be, standing behind Quistis's desk, looking out through the windows towards the mountains. While Squall actually had his own office in another part of the building, he was always here pondering many things other than the view. But the familiarity of the man, the way he stood, even what he wore was enough to shake previous feelings of dread from Nida. If Squall was still here then things had to be fine._

"_Squall…" Nida said, but it didn't sound right. Why was his voice weary and shaky, and even broken?_

_Slowly, painfully slowly, Squall turned to regard him, but it waasn't the Squall he knew that looked back. Where moments before there had been a young, powerful General Leonhart with his back to a subordinate, there was now an old man. It was obvious that he was barely standing on his own two legs, and it was only an old stubbornness that kept him so. Proud gray eyes had been made glassy by time, and even his scar was hard to see for all the wrinkles in his face. This was not his companion, his superior, his friend. This was an old man. A sort of man who had grand-children and told them stories about when he was younger about how hard life used to be. It was most definitely not the warrior he'd found himself infatuated with. _

"_He can't answer you, and even if he could, he wouldn't know what to say," came a familiar and arrogant tone, though with a far gentler edge. _

_Time had been far kinder to Seifer than it had to Squall. While he did look smaller, more fragile, the man carried himself as proudly as he had in his youth. The skin was paler, his hair bleached pure white by time, and even wrinkles seemed too fearful to perch upon his brow. Somehow Seifer avoided most of the cliché attempts made by time, though he obviously had not escaped completely without being marked._

"_Seifer! What is going on here?"_

"_I should be asking that of you," he responded, moving through the door to join Squall and Nida in the office. _

"_Why isn't Squall talking to me? Why is Garden in such a poor state? What…"_

_Seifer raised a hand to silence him. "Slow down. First, Squall got injured not long after you disappeared, you ass. A mission in the Centra area, the Ruins. Refused to replace Shiva with Diablos or Tonberry King. You know how he gets about the ice queen… For some reason, a Tonberry went for his throat. Poor guy barely survived. If someone had been with him, or had gotten there when the distress signal went us, he might not even have gotten a scar. Instead he lost his voice."_

_The pilot backed up a step, unable to accept the news. Truth was that he was the one that accompanied Squall to Centra. The Tonberrys just hated Seifer too much, and Nida had a pretty good bond to Tonberry King. It was his fault, and he couldn't believe it anyway._

"_What it came down to was the fact that Squall just prefers not to talk. When he became unable to even voice an opinion he withdrew more and took even further to the use of GFs. You know what a few months does to the mind? Imagine ten years Nida. Imagine ten years of constant junction! His mind never recovered. And without its Lion, Balamb fell when Rinoa went all psycho bitch on the world. She killed his father, Nidus Nidulus, and when he sealed her away, after promising all those years ago to protect her, he broke down."_

_Still Nida backed away, covering his ears. It was a lie, all a lie. It couldn't be true, he refused to believe it. None of this could be real. Not a single word. _

"_Amazing what can happen when one asshole goes AWOL for sixty years…"_

"_No," Nida mumbled, "I don't believe you! This isn't happening! This isn't _REAL!"

The last word was almost screamed as the SeeD sat bolt upright in the bed. A cold sweat had caused his hair and the sheets to become plastered to his body. Every inch of him was shaking, his body betraying him for a single dream.

There was a loud 'rustle-thunk', a groan, and then a rather worried Cid was at his side. The presence of the blond did little to calm Nida though. In fact, it was just the opposite. An already rapid heartbeat nearly doubled, breathing did not relax, and the whole of his body remained strung tighter than a bow.

"Shhh," Cid whispered, leaning in to put his arms around Nida's shaking body. "It's okay. You're safe here kid. It was only a dream. Just a dream. Shh… Just a dream."

In the shelter of Cid's embrace the tense body relaxed, at least somewhat. Here and now, despite the awkwardness of what could have been minutes, hours, or days before, he was finding comfort. There was safety to be had here, wrapped in strong arms and blanketed in a voice that would otherwise have sent shivers down his spine. Desperately in need of the warmth, the care, the comfort, Nida pressed into the hug, burying his face in the shirt Cid was wearing. And, for the first time since coming to this place, Nida cried. He cried for missing his home. He cried for letting Squall down. He cried for being apart from the ones who were his family. He cried for the Ragnarok and those mindless idiots who were his students. He cried because he couldn't have it all back. He cried until he couldn't find any more tears, and then he cried without them.

When he couldn't cry anymore, even without the tears, the younger pilot remained where he was, held tight in the warmth and safety of Cid's arms. Part of him wanted to know why Cid was doing this for him, but it was afraid of asking and afraid of the answer. So he just, very carefully, tilted his head to look up at Cid, knowing how silly he must look with his hair plastered to his head and his eyes all red and puffy. Honestly, he must have looked like he was no more than a little kid terrified by a night mare. In fact, sitting as he was, pressed against Cid (when had the man started running his hand through his hair and why did he make him feel so much more relaxed?) he almost felt like a child held by their parent. At least, that was what he thought it must feel like.

"You okay now?" Cid asked, his voice still gentle and his hand still running through the wet hair.

Knowing his voice would betray him if he even tried the littlest peep, Nida merely nodded.

"Want to talk about it?"

The younger man shook his head, no way in hell.

"Want a glass of warm milk? Maybe some cookies?"

There was another 'thunk', but this time it was proceeded by a 'whap'. Nida couldn't help but smirk triumphantly at Cid on the floor, glaring up at him and the pillow in his hand. What could he say? He hated to be patronized.

"Okay, okay, I get it. I'll leave you alone," Cid grumbled, standing and rubbing his head in a highly exaggerated manner.

"Don't." For a second Nida wasn't sure where the pathetic little yelp had come from, until he saw Cid nod. So that weak and scared voice had been his own. Great. This was all just great. He frowned down at the pillow in his hands, toying with it to try and distract him from the weight that settled beside him on the bed.

"Okay kid, I'll stay, on one condition."

Nida looked up, frown still in place, punctuated by an attempt at a pleading look in his eyes. The sort of look that turned Irvine to putty in Selphie's hands. Cid seemed immune though, probably due to Yuffie, and the blond ran a hand through his own hair as he pondered his condition.

With a nod from Nida, Cid continued with, "Why did you… Earlier you… I was just wondering…"

Ah, the kiss. Nida's cheeks burned, an odd contrast to the chill going through the rest of him. He worked his lips a bit, trying to convince his voice that it should work the right way. Luckily it obeyed.

"I wanted to."

There, now there was no need to blame it on anything else, because blaming it on anything else would invariably lead to questions about the nightmare.

Cid took the answer in silence. Really, he was handling it a lot better than Nida would have thought him capable of. So, taking the chance to interrupt the man before he could think upon it too much and decide to throw him out, Nida posed his own question.

"Why have you stayed in here when I've been sleeping?"

With a smirk Cid threw Nida's answer right back at him.

"I wanted to."

Three words, simple enough, and all the previous confusion, animosity, and misunderstandings between them melted away. Cid didn't need to say anything for Nida to crawl out of the bed to change the soaked sheets. Nida didn't need to say anything to get Cid to open a window to bring in the clean smell of a spring night. Not a word was needed from Cid to get Nida back in bed. Nor was one needed for Nida to coax Cid to join him.

Of course, words weren't needed for them to bid each other good night, but they used them anyway. Just not the sort you said out loud.


	6. Chapter 5

Author's Notes: I hope I am not going too fast. I just love this. It get so much out of writing it and since other people enjoy it I'm only encouraged to do even more. I really love this verse, and apparently I've got fanarts coming, though I know not what I do to deserve them. Oh, and of last chapter I passed the 20k mark on words. That means that as of Chapter 4 only one of my stories here is larger than it, other then the whole compilation that is Blue Prints For Life.

* * *

Chapter 5

"Nidus," a voice came, cutting through pleasant dreams of unassisted flight. The voice echoed through his dream, becoming the whole world calling out to him. It wasn't his name of course, but it was close enough for Nida to not notice it and sleep happily on. It wasn't until a hand rested upon his shoulder that Nida awoke, and even then it was only because the weight distracted him from flight.

"Nidus wake up," the voice repeated, the hand at his shoulder gently shaking him. He groaned and rolled away from the hand. He didn't want to wake up yet. He was comfortable here in Cid's…

This was when the eyes of the SeeD popped open, and his hand sought about for Cid, who really should have been behind him. The blond shouldn't have been able to sneak away from him during the night, and shouldn't have wanted to. Their bodies had fit together so well when Cid held him, surely he would have known when Cid had left him. Nonetheless the pilot wasn't there, and Nida was soon forced to roll over and look at Shera.

"It's Nida," he mumbled, slowly sitting up and glaring at the window that was pouring in sunshine.

"So said Yuffie, but I hadn't been told by you, so I didn't want to take any liberties."

"You have more than enough right to do so," Nida chuckled as he stretched. "I am imposing upon you by being here after all. Giving you extra work to do…"

"The place hasn't been cleaner in years. And Captain hasn't sworn much since you got here."

Nida was rather sure she exaggerated on that last part there, but he didn't say so. All he did was smile and pull the sheets around his body. "What time is it?"

"Almost noon. Cid just went out to see to our guests."

"Guests?" This was followed quickly by, "NOON!?"

"Is there a problem?" Shera asked, backing away from the bed as Nida leapt up, sheets around him, and watched him rush to the dresser.

"Why did you two let me sleep this long? I've never slept so late in my life."

"Captain said you didn't sleep well, so we didn't want to wake you. Why does it matter? I didn't think you had anywhere to be."

The woman had a point, but Nida wasn't willing to admit that. In annoyance he began to rummage through the dresser, wishing Cid had something other than the blue shirts and loose pants that were too short on him. If there was anything else at all he would have taken it happily, but there was nothing. He took out a pair of pants and a shirt.

"Wait," Shera said, rushing over. "I have something for you."

She held out a bundle of clothes, familiar enough to him. So familiar that Nida was speechless. His uniform, completely unharmed. Carefully his fingers brushed the familiar collar, something that was always tight enough to make things just a bit uncomfortable. Pants with seams so perfect, so sharp, that they might just be able to cut paper. A shirt tailored so well to his body that it felt like a second skin. The beautiful embroidery at the chest. The mark of a SeeD, even his pilot wings, which were shaped like Quez, and his pips of rank were there.

"My…"

"We found you in this. I've been trying my best to repair it. Didn't want to give it to you until it was as perfect as possible. But seeing as the others should be coming today, you'd probably feel better in your own clothes."

"This is… amazing," he said, unable to do more than whisper. Taking the clothes he just stood there for a while, running a thumb over his pilot wings. "Thank you… so much."

She smiled and turned away. The woman paused at the door and turned to smile at him. "You're not going to thank me in a moment. You've got ten minutes to clean yourself up and get breakfast before the Captain brings everyone here. They will be out back. You best hurry yourself up if you want to make a better impression on them than you did on Miss Yuffie."

Luckily for Shera she made it out of the room before the pillow that had been used to assault Cid the night before was thrown after her. It whumped harmlessly against the door and fell to the floor, leaving Nida alone with his uniform and his thoughts. After a few moments he shifted his grip on the uniform, gathered up the socks and boots that had been left from the night before, and made his way for the bathroom. A shower was most definitely in place.

--------

After a piece of toast and a cup of tea Nida headed out through the back door, finally ready to deal with whoever these guests Shera mentioned were. What he hadn't expected was the utter silence that answered his appearance in the back yard. There was a group of people there alright: all from the picture he'd seen in Cid's spare room. Yuffie and another woman (who reminded him in passing of Edea body wise, but radiated a Quistis like presence) were seated in kitchen chairs that Cid had brought outside. One large man, built a lot like Raijin, but with a gun grafted on to his right arm leaned carefully against the fence. Under one of the wings of the Tiny Bronco was a man with dark hair wrapped in black leather and a crimson cloak. Nida could even see gold peeking from under the crimson, but what it would be he wasn't sure. Beside that man was another one in a long blue coat, who was standing straighter and was sporting what could be nothing other than a well kept mullet, with an odd cat wearing boots and a crown at his feet. There was a blond man as well, who had his back to Nida, but had turned enough to look over his shoulder at him. What he wore looked as much like the uniform of a warrior as what Nida wore. Then there was Cid, watching him with eyes wide from atop a wing. And none of them looked all that prepared to see him.

Nida's first action was to look over his clothes. Sure he hadn't gotten a stain on them already. Or what if there was a horrible hole? What if his fly was open? But none of these were in evidence. His next suspicion was that his face was dirty, but surely Shera would have warned him. Finally all he could do was put his hands together and shift nervously from foot to foor.

"He looks like a glorified Turk," the large man against the fence spoke. "Even stands like that bald one."

"He's no Turk," the cloaked man countered, his voice rough and scratchy. "Not only do they stick around Rufus constantly these days, but they aren't big on embellishments upon their suits."

"I've never seen his face before. Not even in Heidegger's files," said the one with the long coat.

"Deep Ground wasn't in the files either," the woman beside Yuffie seemed to point out.

"He's not from Qutai," the princess quickly added.

"Kid's also a damned good mechanic," Cid tossed in helpfully. All the while Nida continued to twitch nervously. He hated being spoken about like this.

"You said he performed magic without materia. Even I can't do that!"

Nida almost jumped when the black and white cat at the feet of the man with the mullet spoke.

"No one since the Cetra has been able to," came a deep, earthy voice from directly behind Nida. The man whirled, instantly slipping into a defensive stance.

What he faced looked a bit lion-like, but also a bit wolfish. The body and tail were more feline while the head, and the sheer size and strength of the body was more canine. There was a partial mane and one of the eyes was scarred. The thing's whole body was covered in red fur and scars, all accented by tribal tattoos and strings of feathers and beads. At it's ankles were gold paw bracelets and at the end of the thing's tail were live flames.

"Looks like you scared him Red," Yuffie chuckled.

There was laughter of varied enthusiasm from the others until a new voice joined into the conversation. The blond. The one that looked like a fighter, with a harness on his back that held a rather large sword. When he spoke the others grew silent.

"Your name is Nida, right?"

Something in the tone made it an order instead of just a question. That something mad Nida turn to regard the blond and made him want to salute. But he refused to let his body do so. This man had no control over him or what he did… right?

"Yes."

"What is the metal?" the blond asked, and again it somehow turned into an order.

"My pilot wings."

"They are silver and gold…"

"They mean that there is nothing I can't fly." Nida wanted so badly to add 'sir'. It almost felt like he was before a really annoyed Squall.

"And those… at your neck…"

The pilot took a deep breath. Apparently it was time to be out with it, like it or not. This wasn't the kind of person you lied to. Then again, these didn't seem like the kind of people who would just take him at his word, not even Cid, not in this. But he could not deny that voice. He had to speak.

"My rank."

The other assembled pondered this response, as evasive as it was, or so they seemed. Mumbling that had been going on died away again and they all waited tensely for how the swordsman would react. The only ones that didn't seem so shocked were the one with the cloak and the one with the mullet to a lesser extent.

"Name and rank," the blond insisted, his voice snapping in the way Seifer's did when he dealt with the new cadet.

"Nida Nomura, Class A SeeD and…" There was another deep breath as he prepared himself for what would come after the revelation. "Major General in charge of the Allied Air Forces."

"He can't be serious!" mullet-man protested instantly, stepping towards the blond. "he's far too young! Are we to believe this kid is a Three-Star General!?"

To this the one in the cloak reached out to hold his companion back. "Sephiroth was a Four-Star General before he was twenty, and a Five-Star General before his death. You should never underestimate one based upon age."

"The kid is delusional!" the large man shouted, earning a glare and a loud 'hey!' from Yuffie.

"Vincent is right. It is possible. But Barret has a point too. If he was what he said he was we would know of him…" came the voice of the dark haired woman beside Yuffie.

"Will ya'll shut up?!" Cid finally barked out. "Spike is handling this all rather well. He's getting more answers from the kid in five minutes than I got all week."

"Cid," Yuffie said, keeping her voice sweet and pretty, "I got more answers from him in five minutes than you did in a week."

The blonde pilot grumbled and lit himself a new cigarette off of the tip of the old. Nida wanted to smile at the sight, and an odd fondness was welling up inside of him. More than anything he wanted to go to Cid's side and pluck that damn smoke from his lips. He wanted to kiss the callous bastard and taste the tobacco and revel in the feeling. There was an odd urge to lay claim to a man who was, as of yet, not his to claim. To end all their questions by giving them a few more and those would come pre-packaged with his answers. And he wanted to stop that damn grumbling.

"What is your weapon?" 'Spike' asked as if there was no one else there but the two fo them.

"He took on four Nibel Wolves on with nothing but his fists," Cid offered.

"Bladed staves, pole arms, spears to a lesser extent. I also have some experience with swords, but not much…"

The swordsman nodded and turned to face him at least. Nida could feel those powerful eyes on him. He had friends who hadn't mastered that look. Squall only had it on his worst, or was it best, days.

"Cid… Spear…" Spike demanded.

"Kid knows where they are."

"Got any without a spearhead?" Nida questioned.

"Well, there is a Full Metal Staff in the extra room. But… it's one of hers…"

So many people should not be capable of being that quiet, but they were. They looked at one another, some silent debate going on for a few moments. Nida wasn't sure just what the matter was. If Cloud wanted him to have a weapon, he should have a weapon. If no one else was using the weapon then it was fair game, right?

At length Cloud nodded. "I don't think she'd mind in a situation like this. Go get it. Everyone else…"

There was nothing else that needed said. Already the people were moving. Cid rushed off to fetch the weapon. The large man, Barret, helped Vincent and Mullet-Man push the Tiny Bronco a bit out of the way as Yuffie and the other woman moved the chairs. The large red creature and the small cat moved out of the way to rest by the fence, where everyone was soon assembled. Something, maybe the tension in the air, told Nida that things were about to become very serious very fast, and how much they believed him and would possibly be willing to help all rested in the hands of this blond swordsman before him.

When Cid returned it was with a weapon that was rather unremarkable in Nida's opinion, and he could not understand why the others had made such a fuss about it (silent as it was). At least, he couldn't until he laid his hands upon it. Suddenly he understood the reverence in Cid as he held the bladed staff out, at least in part. Sure, it was gaudy to look upon, and the thing didn't look as if it could hold his weight, but when he touched the metal it was so wonderfully warm. A chill ran up his arm and he could faintly hear a tinkling laugh. Approval? Amusement? He wasn't quite sure what the laughter was about, but he knew there was something to the weapon and whoever had held it before him.

"Will it do?" Spike asked as Nida's hands closed around the weapon at last.

"I am honored to use it," came the SeeD's response as he bowed. "Might I have a chance to familiarize myself with it before we begin?"

The swordsman nodded and Cid quickly backed out of the way. Part of Nida's mind shut down, and he didn't quite hear the whispers of 'Deep Ground' among Cid's friends. Instead Nida let his fingers brush lovingly up and down the length of the metal staff, inspect the sharpness of the blades, and test the strength of the metal alloy. Yes, this would most definitely do.

With the weapon secure in one hand Nida silently went through a quick warm-up routine, stretching his body and preparing his mind all in one quick series of movements. All the while the staff spun through his fingers and Nida could hear the sweet laughter as the blade cut through the air. Once he was sure of the balance and weight (both of those being perfect and far better than the weapons that had been custom made for him back home) Nida slid easily into a defensive stance, weapon held loosely in his hands before him.

"When you are prepared," he spoke, or rather, he let the words flow out through him.

The man's sword, which probably weighed about as much as Yuffie, was pulled out with only one hand, and raised before him in what Nida assumed was a traditional salute before a spar in this place. All Squall usually did was prepare himself and nod. Attack came if you were ready or not. But this blond was different. Yes, he was just as calm and commanding, but he already seemed to be ready to hold back. There would be no fun in holding back, no honor. Nida would have to lure him out into a real fight.

"My name is Cloud," the blond said softly, moving into a more offensive stance himself. "No magic in battle. And no limits. We'd only tear up Cid's yard."

Nida nodded his agreement. He understood the rules, even made the logical leap that the 'limit' Cloud spoke of was probably a reference to limit breaks, which wear only called breaks back home. There would be no fun in that after all. Sparring was about two people coming repeatedly within inches of their lives and always just barely missing that last time. A near miss could so easily become a final hit and everything would end. That was part of the rush, the joy.

The other part of that rush and that joy came with the sudden lunge of Cloud, his large sword cleaving through the air. It was obvious that the blow could, if not properly parried, or used by a man who was this much of a master, easily split his skull open. This man knew what he was doing, but, luckily for Nida, so did he. The staff came up at the last possible moment, easily sliding against the sword and pushing it to one side as the rest of Nida spun in the other direction. As soon as the spin stopped Nida's foot lashed out in a kick intended for Cloud's head. Of course the blonde easily backed away and twisted both blade and body to come at Nida from the unprotected side.

Again the staff came between the blade and soft flesh, expertly deflecting with half of the motion and allowing Nida to attempt a counter attack before his movements were complete. It went on like that for a few more attacks from either side until the two had gotten their 'hello's out of the way. Then, with a smirk from both, the real fun began. Now that they knew the rhythm, it was time to get serious.

Nida leapt nimbly over a slash aimed for his legs and before he had even landed thrust forward at Cloud's head. The sword was brought up just in time for Cloud to block a series of quick jabs thrown at head, arms, torso and legs. And the second Nida backed off for a breath Cloud was lunging forward, returning Nida's previous jabs with several of his own, warranting some quick evasion by the younger man. After a jab at his head Nida slid easily to the ground and the staff swept out, attempting to take Cloud off of his feet. Before it could the blond was jumping over the staff and the sword was swung with apparent intentions to take off Nida's head. The SeeD placed both of his hands firmly upon the staff and the staff upon the ground, allowing his legs freedom to kick both sword and leg of his opponent. As Cloud stumbled backwards Nida flipped back to his feet and carefully placed his weapon behind his neck and wrapped around his forearm. The move gave him extra control of the light weight staff as he unleashed another series of jabs that were narrowly avoided, and before Cloud could counter the Seed released the grip of the arm wrapped around the staff so that he might swung the whole thing around his body and hit the man solidly in the side. Luckily no blade came into play, and the combatants backed off for a minute, one grinning the other merely smirking.

For a few moments they circled each other, weapons at ready, before Nida made his move. The end of one blade was planted firmly in the ground and the whole staff was used as a pole to allow him to deliver a kick to Cloud's stomach. It was a move that often worked upon Squall, but this man was smarter than that. Part of the skill of a gunblade master was in keeping your foe at just the perfect range to leave anything but another gunblade awkward. This man took his advantage from the size and weight of his weapon. No one could expect him to move as fast as he did, as gracefully as he could, but he did it anyway. The large weapon came up between them and Nida's foot hit square in the middle of it. Cloud smiled and pushed out against Nida, throwing him back against his staff and knocking both him and it to the ground. Victory was in his eyes as he placed the tip of the weapon near Nida's neck.

Nida was, luckily enough, unafraid of pain. His arm came up to press the blade away, much to the shock of the swordsman. With Siren's voice soothing him in his mind he was capable of ignoring the pain that came with the sword cutting into his skin as if it were only butter. And once he had enough room, Nida reached for his weapon with the uninjured arm and swung for Cloud, causing the man to have to back up to avoid the blade. It was all he needed, one second, to get back on his feet and deliver a kick to the man's wrist. The foot Nida had planted in preparation for the kick barely avoided having a toe cut off by the falling blade, but the mercenary didn't notice. Instantly he was on the offensive, delivering repeated, intentional near misses to drive Cloud back. Once he had the room to do so Nida moved low and with a kick knocked the blond to the ground.

With the swordsman laid out flat it was simple enough for Nida to finish their fight. He quickly straddled Cloud's body, planting his knees firmly into the ground. The blade of his staff was pressed carefully against Cloud's neck, and the weight of Nida's arms upon the weapon made sure that Cloud couldn't break free. Like this the pair rested for a few moments, one smiling and one smirking, until they had come down off the battle high.

Nida knew now just why he'd ended up in bed with Kiros, why he'd wanted Squall so bad and why he'd always been drawn to Seifer. It was the fiery lust that came with the edge, the dance of death. Every cell in your body was active, your heart was pounding in your ears, and you were undeniably alive. Oddly enough, even with this handsome blond before him, Nida's thoughts were all on Cid. After another moment he stood and held a hand out to the blond.

"You're good," Cloud said as he stood and moved to fetch his sword.

"I won't be able to beat you again," Nida laughed, "not if we were sparring. Only managed because you weren't expecting me to be willing to hurt myself for the victory."

Something in Nida's mind clicked then. His uniform! Shera was going to kill him! Quickly his fingers moved over the wound below the torn fabric and he called out to Siren. Before he realized the error in once more using magic before people he barely knew, his cut was healed. Then again, before he really thought about it he had removed his uniform jacket to inspect the bloody tear.

"Hyne, Shera just finished repairing it too!"

"Tifa," Cloud called over his shoulder. The older woman with Yuffie moved to his side, eyes wide. "Can you help him with his jacket? Nanaki, Vincent, Reeve, I need to speak with you for a moment. Cid, would you, Barret and Yuffie bring the table out. There isn't room to talk inside, and we're going to be talking for a while."

The people jumped to Cloud's command and he merely nodded to Nida. "Come with me."

It was an order, just like everything else up until now had been an order. But this one was different. The fact was that the tone wasn't the same. It wasn't something to be followed blindly. No, this one had an underlying hint of request. Nida could do little more than smile. He had won Cloud over. So now he had three of them on his side, and the one that had been referred to as Vincent seemed rather reasonable. Maybe… maybe things might turn out alright.

"In a moment. I have something I need to do," Nida said, smiling. Cloud just nodded and turned away. He wasn't HAPPY, but he wasn't going to demand Nida come with him anyway.

The SeeD, smiling to himself, picked up the fallen staff and entered the house as Cid had moments before. Once he reached the kitchen he found the other pilot easily, as the man was trying his best to struggle with Barret and a table. Yuffie herself was perched atop the table, smiling at them both. And Shera? Well she was looking on in near horror at the two men and the ninja girl.

"Cid," Nida called out. All four sets of eyes turned on him. He had the sense of being looked up and down, and turned scarlet when Yuffie gave him two enthusiastic thumbs up.

"Damn Nids, we need to get you more stuff like THAT!" she cheered, apparently appreciating the way his undershirt clung to his torso far better than Cid's had. What could he say; his shoulders weren't as broad and his torso not so large as Cid's.

"Shut your yap missy," Cid barked, setting his part of the table down. "What do ya want now kid?"

"First, I would appreciate it if you stopped calling me kid. I'm twenty one…"

"He's older than me!" Yuffie protested.

Nida continued as if she hadn't cut him off. "And secondly, might I have a word with you?"

With a sigh Cid followed the younger pilot into the storage room. Once there Nida handed over the bladed weapon. After it was in Cid's hands he pressed the older man against the wall and kissed him. It wasn't that little peck from the night before. Instead it was insistent, demanding, needy. His fingers snuck under the edge of Cid's shirt to tease at the muscles below. Before Cid could respond though, Nida pulled away and ran his fingers through his hair to make sure he still looked fine.

"Wha…" was all Cid managed to say, completely and utterly stunned.

"My friends always told me I should stop being backward about coming forward… But I think I was a little too forward there. I just…"

"Ya know… The way ya fight…"

"Someone once told me it was like a dance. And like any dance, he wasn't sure if he wanted to watch or join in," Nida almost purred into Cid's ear. The way the other man shuddered actually sent a shiver up Nida's own spine.

"And which did he prefer…?" Cid asked, and Nida was amused by the blond's sudden attempts to switch their position. A dominate one. That would be fun.

"Joining in. In fact, I believe he would have quite envied Cloud…"

And with that Nida turned and headed out of the room. "Don't forget to put that weapon away Cid. You might put someone's eye out."

Laughing to himself Nida retreated outside. He had a swordsman to speak with.


	7. Chapter 6

Author's Notes: This chapter was giving me troubles. But it's done now and I'm quite proud of it. But, to what I assume will be the annoyance of the readers, I decided to leave the smut to your imagination. Of course, if anyone actually wants to do something silly suck as go out and WRITE about it, they are free to do so. Just keep in mind that Nida has made it very clear it's not getting any further than hands and mouth for now. That would just make the next chapter hard. … Great, an unintentional innuendo. Shesh. Enjoy anyway!

* * *

Chapter 6

Three hours he'd been at this table, quiet, listening, waiting, just trying to take it all in. He'd learned more about this world in that small amount of time than he'd learned about his own over three years of Garden education. The woman who had been with Yuffie, her name was Tifa if Nida's overloaded mind hadn't failed him yet, had spoken of materia and the ancients, and why his abilities with magic were so surprising. Vincent, the man in the cloak, had spoken of ShinRa and Midgar. The one with the mullet, Reeve Tuesti, spoke of the war with Wutai, and of the world after it. Barrett told of mako energy and the damage it had wrought upon the world. There were other tales to speak of as well, but all the information was too much. In fact, his attention was limited save when Cloud finally took the chance to speak. He spoke of a man called Zack, who had died to protect him, of Sephiroth, of SOLDIER and Hojo, of a woman called Aeris and Jenova, of Holy and Meteor. That wasn't it either. After that he told of three 'clones' of the man Sephiroth, and Geostigma and the reemergence of Sephiroth. Finally Cloud spoke of Deep Ground, something that had happened only recently, but his eyes always darted to Vincent and Reeve often enough that Nida knew it was their story to tell, but that they had allowed him to tell it.

When it was all over Nida just sat there for a moment, taking it in, and trying to make sense of it all. There wasn't enough time for that though, before everyone had their eyes on him once more. It was time, he supposed, to tell his own story. The SeeD glared at the glass of lemonade before him. At some point Shera had taken the time to prepare things for everyone to snack upon, and things to drink, for which he was thankful. By this time there were already drops of water forming on the glass, and it was slick to the touch. Still, before he rose, Nida downed the whole thing, despite how much more thirsty it made him. It had been a while since he'd had to give a formal address to anyone, even in an informal setting, and never before to this many people. At least, not since he was a young SeeD, just before his promotion, explaining the plan that helped change the course of the war…

He could remember that speech by heart. Not a day passed that he did not regret it. Hundreds slain in the course of an hour to save thousands in the long run, and all by his orders. What had he been thinking? And he'd have to live with that memory every day until his death, which was going to be a long way off at this rate. His whole body shook with remembrance of where that last speech had gotten him, but he wasn't going to back down. Not here, not now. So he closed his eyes and took comfort in the presence of Siren caressing his consciousness. At least his lady would be there to stand by him through this. Something familiar, something safe. He could do this. She'd been there then to help him, and she would be here now.

"You know, from what I heard, I can tell this place, while not my home, is not that much different. Yes, there are different cultures, different backgrounds, different reasons and different people, but there is one thing that is the same. You fought hard and lost good people in the name of peace, and so did we. But, I wish it were that we'd known the face of our enemy as you had. A General hell bent on world destruction is no easy thing to face, but at least there was a face. ShinRa was something you could look upon and say 'this, this is what we fight against'. Mako was something you could see and know was wrong from the beginning. Back home, things were not so simple. But, if they were, I wouldn't stand before you today I believe, and my home would not exist…"

Again Siren reached out to brush his mind, comforting him, assuring him that things would be fine. He expected that, he was used to that. She was very protective, very sweet. Her voice was always music in his ears and only he could understand her so clearly. SeeDs developed a deep bond with their GFs these days, even though they were used even less and less. No one but Squall could really understand the cold laughter of Shiva, and only Seifer could tell you the thoughts of Ifrit, and that beast spoke only in a deep basso rumble. All the Guardians had their own methods, and while anyone that worked with them could get the gist of what they were saying, or maybe every third word or so, only ones close to them could understand it all. It was something they took pride in, and care, for while they could lose things to the Guardians, they always had a companion, junctioned or otherwise.

"Where I come from there is nothing exactly like your materia. I suppose the closest things would be spell stones, but those only release their magic when a certain word is spoken, and anyone can use them, but only once. They are hardly common though, so they tend to be kept for the worst situations only. Neither do we have mako, but I believe we do have something a bit like it. There are points where the natural magic of the world seeps up through the ground, allowing us access to magic. Magic is… a special thing where I come from. It is in every living thing, from the planet itself to the monsters that roam the plains, to the people around us. It's even in the things that one had life, and in the stones and in every bit of everything. But the thing is that people normally aren't capable of accessing that magic. Yes, there are people known to be so attuned to certain spells that they can use them without assistance, but those are all well trained and amazing things to behold. The fact is that where I am from we do not use magic as you understand it. We use something created by the Estharian people called Para-Magic.

"I do not understand everything there is to know about Para-Magic, but what I do know is important enough and basic enough that it could give you the feel of what it is like for us. While we as humans are capable of storing magic within ourselves, and with time and training, we can use some weak spells on our own, to use anything of any real power, or any real range of spells we must rely upon things to channel the magic we already have, and to allow us to draw more from the planet and other creatures. These are the Guardian Forces. They are ethereal beings, existing on a plane of existence that I don't much understand. What they give us is a sort of symbiosis. They give us their strength, the ability to use our magics, and the ability to call upon them in battle in dire situations to fight for us. In return they are given a means of existence upon our plane, and a part of our mind to call their home. Of course we only just learned that such an exchange comes at more of a price than that. The place where Guardians live is a part of the mind that controls long term memory. Part of our past is given up for their strength if we use them in the long term…"

Again he stopped, downing another glass that someone had poured for him during his speaking. He reached out for Siren, asking her if he had left anything out, and was shocked to find a foot nudging his under the table. Siren laughed in the back of his mind when he looked from the corner of his eye to notice the look on Cid's face. The man had taken a spot at his right hand, and looked none too happy with him. Apparently he hadn't enjoyed Nida's escape after that little, how should he put it…

_I would call it a groping_, Siren helpfully provided, her voice as musically sweet as ever. Sometimes she could be very annoying.

_Did I ask for your opinion?_

_Now now my sweet eagle, strike me not down. Surely you know by now that questions posed unto yourself are subject to my whims. Or I could just leave you be if you so greatly desire it…_

_No fair Siren, no fair. _

_Face it my falcon, for now you need me. You cannot be sure if you can trust them, and you cannot get by without some of the strength I give you. Do I not make your ears sharper? Do I not keep falsities from fooling you? Do I not protect you?_

"Nida?" a gentle voice cut through Siren's arguments. It was the woman Tifa, seated beside Cloud.

He shook his head, trying to silence the voice, and looked upon the woman. She, like the others of the group, were frowning at him, but at least her look held a warm concern. That he could understand. She took in orphans if her story was to be believed. People that took in orphans tended to have a very active mothering instinct, and anything that might be harmed near them was instantly under their protection. The last time he'd seen a look like that directed at him he'd been at a formal gathering with a cold, and Lady Edea, Matron, had bustled about him like a worried mother hen.

"Nida, are you okay?" Tifa asked, frowning. "Do you need to…"

"Allow me to guess, I zoned out there," he cut her off with a chuckle. "Forgive me. Sometimes I forget myself. Guardians are beings with minds and unique personalities, just like humans. When one develops a strong bond with a Guardian it's just like having another person inside your head. They are free to comment when they want and how they see fit. And my Guardian, Siren, she's a real talker. Apparently she felt that it was appropriate to interrupt my personal thoughts with her opinion. When she starts talking I am bound to respond. Back home people grow used to high level SeeDs zoning out, even in the middle of polite conversation, to deal with their Guardian. It's one of the reasons we try not to have them junctioned for long periods…"

"But since you've come here she's been… what is it, junctioned to you?" Nanaki asked from his spot near the table.

Nida nodded. "Normally when they aren't junctioned we keep our GFs in trinkets or things suited to them personally. The lightning bird, whose name I've never been good at, resides in the computer of a rather excitable lady named Selphie. When we can't have something like that they live in special trinkets made of mythril, which is kept with their companion, to make sure they are always at hand when needed. Siren stayed in a little mythril harp necklace I wore when I traveled, but… Well, I don't have it."

"Sounds like materia to me," Cid mumbled, "Materia works better when ya've got mythrili as a conduit around it."

"I'm sure we can find you something fitting for Siren," Yuffie added cheerfully. "Can't have you losing memories can we?"

"She is what I have of home… I want her close. I shall just have to ignore her for now."

Nida stared at the table for a moment, clearing his head and giving Siren a bit of a warning before continuing with his story.

"There are, where I come from, people capable of using magic without the Guardians though. Women with such power, such control over magic that they can do with the weakest spells what even people with years training with Guardians cannot. The Sorceresses, called Daughters of Hyne because of their power. Over the years we've come to know more and more about Sorceresses, but not all of it has been good. In the past there has always been these women, and their powers pass on upon death to women with a gift, with the chance to wield magic like they do. But power, as you know, can easily corrupt even the purest minds. My world has been plagued by something called Sorceress Wars. When those women, with their power, fall… They drag the world with them.

"We don't know how far back these wars have been fought, we may never know, but we know that even today we are plagued with them. When I was just a baby I was orphaned because of what we refer to today as the First Sorceress War, though it is hardly that. A sorceress named Adel took over the country of Esthar, a city technologically advanced, far beyond the other cultures of the planet, and struck out. A great deal of my generation is that of orphans because of her. Esthar was enslaved, Galbadia crushed, Balamb quelled, and the only other sorceress currently active in the world could do nothing to stop her. Her reign would be complete today were it not for a name named Laguna Loire. To save a young girl he went to Esthar, he caused Adel to be sealed, but that isn't my story. What is my story is that of his son, a child called Squall. What Laguna didn't know is that the wife he left behind had a child, who was sent to the orphanage where I grew up, raised under the care of the kind Sorceress Edea, our Matron.

"Matron knew something that no one else knew, that Adel had been pushed by the hand of a sorceress that wasn't of our time. A dark woman from the future with dark intentions. To protect the orphans that had become her children she came up with an idea, a means to ensure our future. Together with her husband and ancient technology, with the guidance and wisdom of the then President Loire of Esthar and the cunning of their scientists, and with the financial backing of the Shumi people, the Gardens were created in Balamb, Galbadia and Trabia. Homes for children who were homeless, for people that wanted a life, for orphans and children whose parents wanted to give them a future. Gardens, with SeeD warriors capable of working alongside the powerful Guardian Forces, with the intention that one day they would be able to stop her were she ever consumed by the will of that sorceress from the future.

"I was sent to Garden when I was nine, after my adoptive mother died. From a young age the other children and I were taught many things. It was home, it was school, it was life. And when I turned twelve, it became more than that. We began training to be the future warriors of Garden, the elite mercenaries called SeeD. We learned to control magic, to commune with the Guardians, to fight, to do anything that would be required of us to serve our Garden and protect our fellows. It may seem cruel to you, but it was all we knew, and we were thankful for it. Everything went fine until about four, maybe five years ago really. My graduation year. Everything went to hell and back so fast."

_I don't think I want to do this,_ Nida suddenly whispered to Siren, flinching away from the memories.

_Do not forget, my sweet owl, I offered to take the memories away long ago._

_I know Siren, I know. I'm… going to gloss over it. Please, keep them back from me._

There was a silent sense of assent and then, after taking a deep breath, Nida launched into familiar and foreboding waters.

"There was war. I don't know how else to put it. One day I was taking my SeeD examination, passing with flying colors, the next people are _dead_. People I grew up with. People I studied with. People I fought alongside. And they were killed by other people I knew, kids I'd spoken with from Galbadia Garden, friends of Selphie from Trabia, friends of Irvine. Seifer, one of the best fighters we had in SeeD, had turned against us for Sorceress Edea, a woman who had raised us and we had forgotten. It was all just…"

"It's okay," Reeve said from where he sat. "I'm sure we can do our best to fill in the blanks…"

The pilot sighed, clenching his fists. No, he had to do this.

"There were seven of them that really did something. Selphie, she's so cheerful, great with magic, loves trains. She was a Trabia student, transferred to Balamb for the graduation exam, never really went back until it was all said and done. Irvine got caught up in an attempt to assassinate the sorceress, before we knew who she was. Real lady killer that one, dressed like a cowboy and thought the world was in Selphie's eyes. Quistis, a year younger than me, but somehow already an instructor. Smart, regal, elegant, and you've never seen someone take to blue magic like her. Must have sorceress blood in her somewhere… There was Zell, he's such an annoyance. Always hopping around practicing his fighting, and he's got this unnatural fondness for hotdogs. Then there was Rinoa, daughter of a powerful Galbadian general, a pampered fool who took on the powers of the sorceress. Thought she could actually help the trained mercenaries. Squall let her though. He was… is, the hero really. The Lion of Balamb, the Demon in Black, the Sorceress Slayer, Griever's Chosen, and so many other names. Silent, stoic, too much of a private guy to be a leader, and yet pretty much THE leader of the free world and more mercenaries than you can count. And Seifer… Arrogant, rude, crude, pompous, powerful, matched only in fighting ability by Squall himself. The Sorceress Knight. They fought against him for a while, but that isn't what matters. They were the ones that did something.

"It was called Time Compression, an idea that was so stupid, so impossible, that only a sorceress could think of it and make it work. The sorceress from the future, Ultimecia, was going to reach her consciousness so far back in time that she would create a compression in which only she could exist. Never got what the point of ruling if you were the only one alive, but it was what she wanted. And to do it she needed that poor girl Laguna had saved when I was a child. So we used her, her own desires, to put her in reach. Used Time Compression and the limited strength that we had from the Guardians to keep us there for a while. Even now no one is sure just how long that final battle was, but in the end the Guardians were exhausted for keeping them, us, in place for so long, and for a moment it was almost like there was no hope.

"They got home though, in the end, and everything was going to be good and peaceful again. Esthar was back as part of the world after seventeen years of hiding, the world was safe, and the only two sorceresses were kept in check because they were so deeply involved with SeeD anyway. But peace… Well… Six months in, if my memory serves, war broke out all over the globe. During that war I got my rank, as SeeDs took control of the military forces of the nations. I don't want to get into that though, other than to say it wasn't easy. Good people died for the worst reasons. For a while, I even gave up hope. The peace we have now is so carefully guarded. So precious. So tenuous. All we hope to do is hold it and hope that nothing goes wrong…"

His hands were shaking, and he could do nothing to hide it. Had he a Guardian like Brothers such a little thing would be easily kept at bay. As it was he had Siren. She enhanced his hearing, and he could hear them all breathing. Hear their hearts beating. Sometimes he was sure he could almost hear their thoughts, but he didn't want their pity. He refused to take it.

"Since then," he said, voice sharp to snap them from their thoughts, "We've done our best to protect the world. We've had battles, we've lost people, but it's back to the ways of the mercenary now. I haven't actually had to pull rank on anyone, wave my position under their noses for two years, and I'm happy. The scars I get now don't come from struggles for peace, but just the average power play that is involved with dueling some of the strongest warriors the world has seen because we get bored sitting on our hands. Hell, I teach kids to fly now, which is pretty damn stressful. I've even lived out my dream of going to space, spent a whole week on the Estharian Space Station learning more about things. My missions are few and far between now, mainly things that lesser SeeDs can't handle, or rescue ops, or dealing with things that are remnants of the wars. It was a damn mission that landed me here. I was supposed to watch over an experiment performed that would look into the facets of Time Compression. I can only assume things went wrong, because I'm here with no way of going back."

Nida smirked and slowly sat down, "And that… though hardly in detail, is my story…"

There was silence, and he knew that they weren't likely to speak for a while. They'd be lost trying to understand his tale as he was still trying to understand theirs. He hadn't of course, nearly given him the detail they probably would have wanted, but he didn't have to, right?

_Right you are my little lark, _Siren assured him, her consciousness stroking his in a very motherly way.

_Lark? What happened to birds of prey Siren? Am I rendered as harmless as a little songbird? _

_Forgive me dove, there are only so many generalities for such creatures before I have to get into those that fish, or into carrion eaters. Are not song birds better than those?_

_I suppose they are, my lady. But I am not in the mood for this now._

_You are in the mood to remember, and to forget. Who knows this better than I my dear? Come, let us take time to remember those who deserve it before I shelter you again. Surely their debates can last a time without you. _

With a nod Nida rose from his seat again, drawing the attention of the others with that movement. "If you would excuse me." Then, without awaiting either acknowledgement or permission, he left the table and the others behind. Once more he found himself feeling to Cid's bedroom, his only sanctuary in this place. It wasn't home, he was sure of that. Not home of any time. The only thing that even rung a bell to him was when they had spoken of a people called the Cetra. But even he would not leap to the conclusion that those Cetra and the people of Centra were related in any way.

_You know, my little wren, things could be worse._

Nida frowned as he looked up. Here he was, perched upon the bed, and there was Siren, slightly transparent, sitting beside him, her wings resting at her sides, her harp in her lap, and her ghostly fingers toying absently with a strand of his hair. She was one of the more forceful Guardians from his experience. The others, save Shiva and possibly Carbuncle, wouldn't draw from you to manifest in any way in the real world unless called. Carbuncle, being such a slight drain, was known to frolic about Selphie at the oddest times, but mainly when Laguna was around. It was almost physical when it did show up, but it wasn't in a summoned state and thus had more free reign. Shiva, on the other hand, only appeared to Squall when he was alone, and even then the word was that she only showed up to duel her chosen one. Siren was the only one he'd heard of that made social visits.

"And how is that?" he hissed, jerking away from her touch. He didn't FEEL like this now. She was enough of a drain as it was.

_You could have Cerberus to keep you company._

"Good point," he mumbled. No matter what he did, he couldn't get along with that three headed beast.

_Listen,_ Siren said, her voice becoming serious, and thus losing its sing-song qualities, _all things happen for a reason. We know not what they are, but Hyne is said to work in mysterious ways._

"Yes. Making Sorceresses who repeatedly attempt to destroy the world is quite mysterious!"

_At the same time, it gave you us, did it not? Come now nightingale, can you not think of one thing that makes this all remotely worth while?_ When he didn't respond she answered for him. _You do not have to deal with Odine. You're still getting your vacation, as well as back time. And what of Cid? Do not tell me that you do not enjoy his company? He's like a mixture of Seifer and Laguna. Strong, arrogant, loud, foolish, sweet, kind, hopeless. What more could you want?_

"My bed back?" he growled, turning away from the Guardian.

"I know what ya mean."

Nida turned wide eyes upon Cid. He hadn't heard the man coming. These days he was so used to Siren warning him of any danger, her abilities heightening his own hearing, that having someone sneak up on him, especially someone he was speaking about, was unnerving. He turned to glare at Siren, who merely giggled.

"You did that on purpose," he hissed angrily, before standing and glaring at Cid. "I'm pretty sure I asked to be left alone."

"Actually," Cid pointed out, "You asked if you could leave, and then didn't wait for a response. Tifa sent me to check on you. Didn't expect you'd have a guest."

"Guest?" Nida looked around, and after a moment his eyes alighted upon Siren, who was grinning and waving her fingers at him. "Wait, you can SEE her?!"

"Am I not supposed to be able to?" Cid asked. "She's kinda obvious. Those big yellow wings stickin' outta her head, the large green thing in her lap… Hell, she's dressed in a feathered bikini. She's kinda see through though…"

Nida sighed. Great, just what he needed, Siren showing off.

_Aren't you going to introduce me to this fine young man, Nida? Have you no manners?_

His patience was quickly running thin. Very thin. Thin as ice.

"Cid, this is the Guardian Force Siren. Siren, this is Captain Cid Highwind. Happy now?"

_Good, you are at least learning._

"So this is that thing in your head that lets you do magic? She doesn't seem very…"

"In my head? I know," Nida grumbled. "She's a real… free spirit I guess."

"I see… Well, I'm just checking to see if you're okay and all…"

Nida nodded, "I understand, but I need some time Cid…"

The older man nodded and, after bowing a bit to Siren, slipped from the room, closing the door after himself.

_Well that was hardly kind,_ Siren said, her voice taking on a tone Nida was sure that she'd stolen from Quistis. It was the sort of tone that happened before someone began to lecture you.

"Shut up!" he snarled, turning on her. "Just leave me alone! Is silence once in a while too much to ask for!?"

The Guardian looked shocked, and after a moment faded away with a pout. She didn't like being yelled at. He didn't like yelling at her. But there were times when he needed silence, when he needed to think, and sometimes she wasn't conducive to all of that. Were he back home he would have gone into his room for silence and sent her into her necklace, but as it was all he could do was hope for her to stay out of his business. There was a lot of thinking to be done after all.

--------

It wasn't until after Cid's friends had left that Nida had dared to venture forth from the small room. Already it was dark out and stars were dotting the sky. The whole of the house was silent as Cid, the town's unofficial mayor, had gone with Shera to escort his buddies to the inn. The place was his for now, and Nida took advantage of that to sneak out back.

The Tiny Bronco was where it had been the night before, waiting for him. Well, for Cid really, but there was nothing he could do about that. The cool evening breeze brushed over his bare arms as he made his way for the thing. Once the cool metal was under his fingers Nida began to relax. What he would give for even a piece of the Rag to be with him now. Four years of work on that thing had made it like another part of him, his only true sanctuary. With a sigh he stripped off his undershirt, intending to avoid getting it oily as it was the only one he had, and opened the access panel below one of the engines. The tools they had left the night before on one of the wings were still there, and with them in hand Nida went to work. There were always small things that needed fixing or inspection, so he knew that he could be distracted for a while.

For a while he worked, tightening here, tweaking there, checking everything in his reach. His hands and arms were already covered in the black grease that soaked everything in the engine, but that was to be expected. He wasn't, after all, working with computers or something. This was machinery, it had to move to work, and moving things had to be lubricated, and lubrication could get rather messy…

Great, his mind took that to all the wrong places far too fast. Part of him wanted to blame Siren for it, but he knew it was his own fault. Ever since he'd kissed Cid in the extra room he'd been on more than one edge. Oh, and that kiss… He could still feel it on his lips. The taste of tobacco, the shock in the other man, the feel of those strong muscles that Cid both hid and displayed with such skill. And the way that Cid had looked at him after he'd pulled away, like a fish out of water really, or deer in headlights. He'd played along so well.

Hyne, if he didn't stop thinking like this… Well, he didn't want to get grease on his pants. They were his only set of clothes here. These were his uniform pants, as much a sign of SeeD as his jacket. It was something to respect… This was all Cid's fault.

Before Nida could really think about it he rubbed the back of his wrist over his right cheek, something Siren said he always did when he was in an awkward situation. She always said it was amusing to watch him try to do the motion when he was being addressed by a superior, or when he had a weapon in hand. The thing was that it was something he couldn't forget, a cut he had taken during his first duel with Squall, back during his training days. The blood had run down his cheek, and he'd deserved it. He'd been too focused on Squall to notice the attack. The memory had kept with him until this day.

"Ya know… that's kinda cute," came Cid's voice through the night, "and don't you tell no one I said that."

Nida looked around quickly, trying to spot the blond pilot. Damn Siren for failing him again. He was going to give her a piece of his mind one of these days… Well, a piece other than the one she was currently inhabiting.

"You feelin' any better kid?" Cid asked, and finally Nida spotted him. Somehow the man had snuck around the house and was now leaning against the low fence. That damn cigarette was in his mouth again, and a slight relieved smile on his face. Nida couldn't help but wonder if he had any clue just how desirable he looked like that. Part of him, which he assumed was encouraged by the recently awakened GF, said he should pounce. The other part didn't want to ruin the beauty of the man standing there, watching him. He didn't mind this really, watching Cid watching him. It was peaceful.

"I suppose," Nida said at length, forcing a smile.

"Are you aware you've got a bit of grease on your cheek?"

The SeeD blinked and started to rub at his cheek, unknowingly only spreading the patch of black on his light skin. Cid laughed and moved to the gate. It only took the man a whole five seconds to arrive in front of Nida and, after taking off his own shirt, wipe the stain from Nida's cheek. The younger man brushed uncontrollably. He had never felt so much like a kid in his life. After Cid cleaned his cheek the man slowly moved on to wipe Nida's hands on the shirt. Apparently he didn't care much if a single shirt was stained. The shirt was then tossed aside like a rag and Cid just smirked at Nida. The SeeD? Well, he wasn't sure what was going on.

"Thanks," he mumbled nervously. Here was Cid, the object of his desires, so close to him. It was so tempting. But the courage that had been there earlier in the day, that had led him to cop a feel as it was, had long since fled.

"You know," Cid spoke, apparently with the same thing in mind, "I still owe you for that stunt you pulled earlier. Yuffie teased me for ten minutes. She's sharper than I give her credit for."

"A lot like my friend Selphie. Sometimes she's the first person to know things and we never suspect that." He could think of it now. Selphie would know just by looking at him, that he was falling fast and hard for this man, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The thought distracted him long enough for him to actually have to take a moment to realize that he'd been pulled closer to Cid, that those tobacco lips were pressed against his, cigarette lost somewhere in the grass. When he did realize it, it held all of his attention. Those lips and now the calloused fingers of a pole arm user lingering on his scarred back, held all of Nida's attention. Slowly the fingers quested around to his chest and played upon his torso. Nida almost wanted to laugh at the way his flesh jumped when touched by this man, but the moment was too serious for any of that bullshit.

Before he could react the cold metal of the Tiny Bronco was pressed against his back, and Cid stood before him, easily pinning him to the body of the plane, not that Nida wanted to escape just yet. Cid pulled back to look at him for a moment before renewing the kiss, this time with far more force, far more desire, and it was all Nida could do to keep up. It was all going so fast, and Nida couldn't find it in himself to slow it down, to want to make it stop. It wasn't until Cid's hands started to ghost along the top of his pants that Nida finally pushed the man away.

"Don't start something you can't finish," Nida said, his voice coming out in a husky growl.

"Who said I can't finish it?"

"First," Nida said, panting as Cid decided this would be a great time to attack his neck with kisses, "You've never been with another man."

"How do you know?" Cid asked, nipping at the skin at the neck.

"Because you hesitate when you… Get close to my pants," the youth chuckled. He'd noticed it very quickly. The man wasn't quite sure about himself, which meant only one thing.

"Okay… But I could still…"

"Even if you had been, we're supposed to be walking to the Nibel Mountains tomorrow, and I don't like having shooting pains when I walk…"

"How did you…?"

"Siren enhances my hearing. Except she seems to enjoy leaving me clueless about you Highwind."

"And third?"

"You can't handle me," Nida said, a playful smirk over coming him. If Cid really thought he was capable of dealing with this, then who was he to say no to what he wanted? What they wanted?

"Oh? Is that so?" the pilot asked, slightly amused. "If memory serves you are the one pinned here."

"You are getting old," Nida pointed out before easily slipping from Cid's hold. It was easy enough to slide down the side of the plane until he was crouching before Cid. The look of shock in those too blue eyes was something that had to be seen, but Nida was very glad that it was only for him. Before Cid had a chance to stop him, Nida had unbuttoned the other man's pants and started to unzip them... It was all that he could give Cid if he still wanted to be able to walk in the morning. And, with Siren's laughter twinkling in his ear, Nida set to his task…


	8. Chapter 7

Author's Notes: Another long chapter to serve as a peace offering considering the fact that I shall soon be off in college and lacking a PC of my own, meaning that I shall be forced to use shared computers and thus not get as much time to write. I'll probably end up writing by hand when I have the time and then having to type which adds to the over all time it will take to do chapters and slow my output, how sad. I guess it doesn't help that I have a personal minimal page count requirement for this story, or that I lost my train of thought and couldn't figure out how to start this chapter for the longest time. Still not sure I picked the best manner, but damn, him waking up in bed was starting to get ANNOYING.

* * *

Forced to choose between relying upon the magic gifted to him by the woman Siren and that from the glowing crystals that Cloud had placed in both the Full Metal Staff, and a metal bangle now around Nida's wrist, the SeeD wasn't sure which he'd pick. Both had their upsides and downsides. Para-Magic, for example, could be unleashed at a moment's notice. Materia based magic took a bit longer but seemed, in the end, a more powerful magic. Still, such magic was far more physically and mentally draining than the magic Nida had always known, but as far as he knew there was no way to restock his spells, not that he'd attempted it yet. Then again his magic required he be subjected to the chattering of his Guardian Force; not that having a heavy bangle around his wrist was much more comfortable. 

"Ya'r doing well with the materia, all things considered, kid."

"And what, pray tell, do you mean by that, Captain?" Nida grumbled as he followed the lead of Cloud and Nanaki through the mountain pass.

"Just that ya don't exactly seem the magic type. Not with all that fancy footwork and such when you fought with Choco-Lad yesterday."

"One is not limited to either the use of magic or the mastery of weapons," came the voice of Vincent in response to Cid's comment. Nida was more than grateful for the normally silent man cutting into the conversation. Since this morning things had been a little awkward between the SeeD and the pilot who had taken him in, and for obvious reasons. Well, obvious to them at least.

"SeeDs are trained to handle both magic and weapons, though each one has their own specialties, even non-combative ones. Everything from hacking to healing to demolitions... At least, that is what it used to be like."

"And now?"

Nida cast a glance over his shoulder at the trio following him as he followed the blond swordsman and the fire-tailed creature. He didn't miss how Cid looked away, not meeting his eyes, or how Vincent noticed the pilot's action and seemed to shrink even further into the cloak he wore. Of course these were things he had to ignore in order to address the question of the man named Reeve Tuesti. Despite the man's apparent continued dislike of him, Reeve did seem genuinely interested, and the look on his face was much like one Nida had seen on Laguna. This question he'd have to answer in some manner before the man would leave it be.

"It's hard to be a mercenary academy when you are heavily involved in politics, when your most powerful and versatile members have their faces plastered on the news when there is the slightest bit of gossip. As such, we've become more of a military academy than a mercenary one, as I implied yesterday, and we've been forced to find new means of funding. To do so, many courses of study have been added, dropped, and otherwise modified. Garden isn't the same place I grew up in any more. And the use of Guardians, and thus magic, has been limited because of the side effects."

"What is your roll in this 'Garden' now, if I might ask," Reeve prompted. While like Laguna at first glance, the man was obviously far sharper, and used to evasive responses.

"My official rank you already know, but I serve as a teacher, instructor specifically, though I believe a more appropriate term would be professor."

"And your course material?"

"Aviation. The history of flight, flight training, and more recently, of the history of the Estharian space program. While there is less and less of a need for mercenaries and even a military in our day and age, there will never be a lack of need for pilots, or those with even loftier ambitions. Of course, I still do some more risky business when it comes to Garden… which is what has apparently brought me here."

The man nodded in agreement, quieting down as he processed what had been said. Something told Nida that he might just have gained a bit of respect in the eyes of the man, and he only hoped it would not be lost any time soon. This small group of people that Cid had brought into his home were all that Nida felt he'd be able to trust with the truth of the matter at hand… or most of it at least.

"We're getting into dragon territory now. Be on your guard, it should be mating season."

"Why do we always have to go trekkin' through the mountains in mating season again?" Cid grumbled from his place in the back of the little group.

"We would like for our guest to observe the mako spring. There is a chance that it might mean more to him than to us, and we might come to know something more about his reason for being here or how to return him," Nanaki said, speaking for the first time since the hike had begun. Because of this the group seemed to take heed to the words he was now giving.

"You heard Nanaki, and no offense, Cid, but I doubt you could take on a full grown male dragon in mating season, even were Reeve or Vincent to help you."

"Damn kid."

While Cid mumbled to himself about 'spikey haired bastards' and 'lack of respect', Nida sped up enough to close the distance between himself and the leading pair. So far as he knew, there had never been a person capable of taking on a Ruby Dragon alone, Blue yes, but never Ruby. If these things were like Ruby Dragons he would really rather not get separated from the others. Never had he even seen Squall take on a Ruby alone, and that one had killed many a T-Rexaur alone.

"You ever seen a dragon before, Nomura?" Cloud asked, obviously ignoring the disgruntlement of Cid. "Do they have any back where you are from?"

"There are two species of lesser dragons, and two of grand dragons surviving where I am from. The Hexadragon are common enough, and we even have T-Rexaurs in the training grounds used by SeeDs. Blue and Ruby Dragons are only found in the wild though, on two protected islands. Not that they need them. Blue dragons can only be taken down by those with training, and so far as I know there is a very small group outside of SeeD itself that has ever taken down a Ruby. Until recent years there were small groups close to residential areas that had to be moved…"

"Sounds like fun." The tone wasn't quite mocking, but more like that of sympathy hidden behind amusement. True enough were the words, in a sense. Nida had a long scar down the inside of his right thigh from the horn of a Ruby Dragon. He'd attempted to avoid death by the claws, only to half bleed out in the time it took Squall and Irvine to finish the creature off.

"Tons."

"Well, let's see how our dragons stand against yours. We've four species of true dragons, three wyvern species, and that doesn't include pseudo-wyverns, giant lizards, and other things that could be called dragons. But more doesn't necessarily mean better."

"Maybe not, but just because no one back home can take on a Ruby alone doesn't mean you couldn't. I think that if you had the training I'd been given, you'd be by far the best swordsman, or warrior of any sort, that my planet had seen in eons."

"Maybe," Cloud agreed before growing quiet and continuing along the path.

Again Nida glanced back over his shoulder towards Cid, and again the pilot looked away. With a sigh Nida glared down at the path they were following instead. In all honesty, he couldn't understand just why Cid was working so hard to avoid his gaze, or why the man hadn't said more than two sentences to him yet that day. Okay, so maybe he could, but had the other man regretted the previous night that much? Cid had, after all, started it. There had been no liquor on his breath either. Or maybe that was why Cid was so uncomfortable, because he couldn't pass the buck so to speak. They were responsible for their actions the night before, and they hadn't known each other even a week.

What had he been thinking anyway? Had he been thinking at all? Could it have been a mistake? In truth, for all Nida knew, he was being led to his death by these people, though Cloud didn't seem the sort for that kind of lie. Who was to say they really believed his story and weren't just humoring him? What if all of this, all of yesterday, all of last night, were just lies being used against him? Sure, the stars looked wrong, the monsters were different, but couldn't this just be some enemy encampment, or some damn experiment by Odine? A little elaborate for getting information out of a SeeD, but there were some factions left that Nida would not put things like this past.

What if trusting these people, trusting Cid, was just one giant mistake?

_Left!_

"The left!" Nida echoed, calling out to the others before turning in that direction and jumping back a few steps. The reaction was just in time for him to avoid the massive claws that raked at where he had just been standing.

_Behind you!_

"Fuck," Nida swore before turning his back on the visible beast and launching one of his own blizzard spells into the rocks that the other creature would be hiding among.

"Vincent, Reeve, Cid, go low. Nanaki, Nida and I will go high," Cloud's voice was barely audible over the angered cries of the dragon that had just made its presence known from above them in the path.

Now, Nida knew, was no time to question orders, and without another world he started following Cloud and the red beast up into the rockier terrain to close the distance between them and the large creature. At last, as the group came closer to the large creature, Nida was able to understand the differences between these creatures and those he had known back home. One of the main things was the coloring. This creature was a dark, oily green that helped it blend well with the dark mountains it lived in, and the Ruby dragon was just that, a vivid and awe inspiring red that caught the eye from miles off. Another major difference was in size. While the general build of the creatures seemed comparable, four legs, horns, sharp teeth, wings, the Ruby was not only taller, but less bulky in the hind quarters. Then again, it seemed like the uneven distribution of weight might actually allow this dragon to rear up, allowing for far more force behind a blow with the claws. Yes, there were other differences, like the Ruby had larger horns, and the dragon before him had smaller wings, but it was all rather inconsequential at the moment.

"Duck."

Again Nida complied before thinking, not realizing until a moment later that this voice wasn't that of his Guardian, the one that had warned him of the ambush, but that of Cloud. The reason came a moment later when a stream of flames shot over Nida's head. Fire breath. Wonderful. Nida had never been fond of fire breath.

_Do you desire my help?_

_Not yet Siren, I'd rather save you for a tough situation._

A tinkling laughter came in response as Nida managed to avoid another swipe of claws before cutting at the retreating paw, or whatever it was. He hadn't expected much damage would be done, given the thickness of Ruby Dragon scales from memory, but was shocked to be rewarded with a roar of pain. Somehow Nida had managed to over look the fact that the large creature seemed to lack scales, having instead what looked more like a leathery hide. Well, now that was going to be fun.

"Go for the chest and sides if you can," Nanaki said, calm as ever while avoiding a blow from the tail of the creature. Already Nida could see the plan, distract the creature while the large lion went for the throat. Not a mode of approach he was used to, but something he could easily deal with.

Unfortunately the bit of attention it took to understand the unspoken plan took Nida's attention off of the creature for a second too long. Wings flared as the green monstrosity reared with a roar. Shock caused Nida to stumble back a step, which in the rocky terrain was a foolish and novice mistake. In a moment he was flat on his back, a terrible pain in his left ankle from twisting in the fall. Oh, and on top of that there was large, angry, dragon quickly bearing down on him despite the efforts of Cloud and Nanaki.

_Release me, young one. I beg of you._

_The waters… you could hurt the others…_

_Worry not my eaglet, just let me free._

Nida took one last look at the scene before him, then closed his eyes and relented to the desires of the Guardian Force.

--------

Summoning had always been an awkward thing for Nida. While he could pull off a summoning of Siren faster than any other person he knew of, the whole thing always felt strange. Never could he understand the desire that Selphie had to summon as much as possible. The whole process always left him rather queasy. One second he would exist, fully aware of the rush of battle around him, and the next he was awakening in a whole different situation, on edge from those moments of near non-existence. No one knew where people went when a summon was called, and no one had ever asked the summons just how they manifested on a physical plane, and Nida always could guess why. That momentary nausea, the disorientation, the lapse of concentration that existed for just a few seconds long than one would like, it could put even the best trained SeeDs on edge.

There were always people who liked it though. Some who would say that summoning was the closest to divinity that a human could reach. People suggested that in the process of summoning the soul of the person, that which made them who they were, became for a brief moment a part of the realm from which the Guardians came from. And, with the absence of the human soul in its vessel, the spirit of the Guardian took over and the body was changed to that which the Guardian pictured. The only problem with such a theory was the fact that not only the summoner, but often times their companions, also disappeared into wherever it was that they disappeared to.

Of course there were theories for that sort of thing too. The summoned creature would take a moment before their manifest to weave protections over your companions. Another idea was that the summon needs more energy than just that of the one who calls upon them. Personally, Nida had always been of the belief that the summoning was much like the very symbiosis that allowed junctioning. While he never discussed it with others, he'd always thought that for the time of the summon, the person who called for the being existed as part of that creature's mind, occupying a portion of the summon's mind, maybe even the same portion that the summon occupied in the person. And, considering the fact that the summons never spoke of memories of anyone but their master, if they spoke at all, it wouldn't be surprising that, unlike humans, they did not actually have memories of a time before the person who was with them. If they did, who knew, maybe then the person using the summon would experience remnants of those memories during their time of non-existence. After all, Siren had always implied that she enjoyed living his memories of his childhood when there was no need for fighting.

But these were just the musings of one man who didn't even like summoning. As much as he cared for Siren, the whole process always made Nida's skin crawl, now no less as he groaned and opened his eyes. It didn't help that sometimes Siren would leave him in the worst states after a summoning. For example, he was actually lying out on his back probably five feet from the carcass of the dragon that had been attacking. And now that he was looking around, he was almost seven feet from the rocks he'd been lying among when he'd summoned her. What could he say, Siren was a very active summon at times.

"He's awake!" Cid shouted from far too close, causing Nida to wince and cover his ears. No sooner had the SeeD done this than he had the face of the pilot far too close for post-summon comfort.

"Do you mind?" Nida groaned again, pushing Cid away so he could sit up. That proved to be a foolish move though, as there was a new pain in Nida's arm.

"Damn woman doesn't know how to take things easy," he mumbled, rolling up a sleeve to see a long claw mark down his arm. The damage Siren had sustained was probably far worse than this if she had been forced to leave Nida in a worse state than she'd taken him over in.

In recent days, at the prompting of 'Commander Leonhart', new research was being done into the GFs and their affects upon people. Not only had the studies proven at last that the Guardians did damage the long term memory, but that those with a closer bond to the one they are junctioned too had odd affects on both parties. The GFs became able to remain physical for longer, manifest outside of battle as almost astral projections, and actually proved to be amazing fighters outside of their special abilities. One of the accidental discoveries that had come from testing the bond of Squall and Shiva had been that the more severe damages inflicted upon a GF with a close bond to their masters could, in certain cases, be passed to their summoner in smaller amounts if needed. This not only enabled the GF to last longer and do more work in a battle, but seemed to add merit to the ideas that the GF summons really were a transformation of the person summoning.

Then again, Squall had said it was probably no more than the summon occasionally reminding their bonded just what they put up with for their behalf.

"How did that happen?" Cid demanded, not backing off despite Nida's obvious foul mood.

"Siren," was the only answer the pilot got as Nida stood up quickly. Another bad move ultimately. He'd forgotten about twisting his ankle prior to the summon, and started to fall from the pain, only to wind up in the arms of the older man.

"That freaky lady from yesterday?" the pilot continued.

"Of course. She wanted to play too."

Leaning on the shorter man, Nida made his way over to where the other four were waiting, their expressions rather amusing in a way. People always got that sort of awed confusion when a GF was brought into battle. Of course, Nida had been told that they did have summons of their own, so surely Siren hadn't been that different from what they were used to, right?

"What happened?"

"You saw more than I did…" Nida said in response to Cloud as Cid helped him over the last rocks and back onto the path.

"You knew there were dragons about to come upon us. That isn't exactly an easy thing to do," Vincent pointed out.

"As I said yesterday, Siren enhances my hearing. She must have heard the things. She told me what to do, and I just did it."

"That… woman… was she Siren?"

Nida smirked at the wonder in Reeve's voice. A lot of men ended up like that after their first sight of the female summon.

"Beautiful woman, feather bikini? Golden wings spreading from the top of her head? Big green glass harp?"

Reeve nodded.

"Yeah, that was her…"

"Never seen a summon like that."

Cloud nodded in agreement to Cid's comment, but did nothing to push it. Instead he just gestured for them to continue. There were, after all, other things that needed to be done than prodding a man about a summoning. They were in the mountains for another reason, one that Nida still wasn't sure about.

"Are you okay?"

"So you're talking to me now?"

Were it not for the fact that Cid was holding Nida up the older man probably would have pulled away, but as it was, he was pretty much stuck and forced to face the question.

"About last night…"

"It was a mistake."

Cid really did himself a credit, Nida thought, by only stumbling the slightest bit and not bringing either of them down. In fact, except for that little falter it was almost as if Cid was completely unaffected by the words.

"Yeah…"

"I think that if I am to stay any longer, I should take the spare room, or maybe that inn that Shera mentioned."

"You don't have any money though."

"I'll find some way. Don't think I'm below menial tasks. Detentions at Garden usually meant cleaning or cooking or working for the staff in way or another to make up for being a burden upon them. Not that I was often in trouble."

To be in trouble one had to be noticed, and it wasn't until the Reclamation War that Nida was really noticed.

"There aren't often jobs for people in the town, but I'm sure I could find you something."

"I think I can handle myself, Captain Highwind. I've taken care of myself for a while without your help, you know."

"Says the guy I had to save from wolves."

With that Nida pushed Cid away and started to limp after Cloud and Nanaki on his own. Right now he really didn't feel like putting up with the smart remarks of the man. He could get by without Cid. Just because the guy had helped nurse him to health didn't mean Nida was dependant upon him. He'd survived a war, two wars, and the life of a mercenary. Taking care of himself was something he'd always done and no one was going to take that away from him. The only protection he needed was from Siren.

_Ah, but today you didn't even want that much, did you?_

Nida sighed to himself, set his legs on the right path, and turned his focus inwards to the woman who wasn't likely to leave him be just because he asked at this point.

_I could have handled the thing._

_And yet you were on your back, with a twisted ankle, and the thing was about to rip you to shreds. I think you needed my help little one._

_Help? I ended up with a torn up arm. How is that help?_

_Better than being draco-chow. But I begin to believe that you would have preferred it that way. _

The way it the words were hissed at him, all of the musical quality gone for a venomous retort worthy of DoomTrain, made Nida feel guilty. Siren had been trying to help him. It was quite likely she had saved his life, yet again. And for his arm to end up in such a state she must have been in a lot of pain on her own. Was it even right for him to take his anger out on her?

_I'm… _

_I know, dove, I can feel your feelings, remember? I'm not just bound to one area, I have more freedom than you give me credit for. More than any of you humans give any of my kind credit for. Could we have survived so long if we were not powerful?_

_Maybe._

The woman laughed, and warmth spread through Nida at the sound. At least she was happier. For some reason his stomach was doing flip flops that he couldn't explain. He'd eaten, and he shouldn't feel sick this far after a summoning. Maybe it was just an effect of all of the injuries…

_You feel bad. About how you treated him. Cutting him off like that, and without knowing what he wanted to say. For all you know the poor man was about to apologize because he thought he wasn't good enough for you. Or maybe he didn't know how to go about handling you today. Was it just a one time thing, was it a mistake, was it more?_

_Stay out of this Siren._

_So you wish it._

With that, for the first time in a while, Nida was left with total silence. No matter how many times he called out to the GF there was no response, and despite his best efforts he couldn't even get the Guardian to allow him access to his own magic, not even enough to case a simple curative spell.

Apparently there was truth in the old saying.

Hell really did have no fury like a woman scorned.

Unless you wanted to count the fury of a Nida facing that scorn. And a Nida facing that scorn without any magic in a very dangerous area where battle was almost a guarantee. Really, sometimes he just needed to keep his mouth, or mind, or whatever, shut. What was he thinking, alienating the only thing he had left that was a reminder, a piece of home?

"You are aware that it would be but the work of a moment for me to tend to your leg."

Nida almost jumped, or would have at least had his leg not actually given out instead. The lion thing, Nanaki, had apparently dropped back beside him while Nida had been focused elsewhere. Gritting his teeth Nida slowly got back to his feet, despite the pain it caused him to put enough weight on his arm to haul himself up, and the renewed pain in the ankle.

"It's nothing. I'm okay. Don't worry about it."

"You have been steadily slowing your progress for the last four minutes, you are walking with a pronounced limp, and Cid has been following you looking concerned enough to earn teasing by both Vincent and Reeve, which I assure you is not a common thing. I would think that the healing of your leg would not only make our progress smoother, but calm the others."

"In SeeD we're trained not to use spells if they can be avoided. Natural healing should come first because all the spells and potions do is speed up the natural body's healing, and it drains your energy reserves."

"Yes, I can understand that point," the moomba-like creature admitted, his tail flicking back and forth, "but are you trained to take unneeded risks such as slowing a group down when you are in an area you are not only unfamiliar with, but has proven to be hostile?"

"Uh, well, not but…"

"Then the matter is settled," Nanaki said, and for a brief moment there was a glowing from a paw ring before the pain in Nida's leg and arm faded away.

"Uh… Thanks."

"My pleasure. Now, as Cloud said earlier, it should not be much further. Would you please join Cloud and myself? I'm sure the other three are tired enough of what we are going to see that they won't even want to join us."

Nida nodded and followed the creature, ignoring the feeling that eyes were following them. All Nanaki and Cloud were probably doing was giving him a way to avoid the tension that had appeared between himself and Cid, but he was more than thankful. There were things he needed to figure out before he actually dealt with Cid, including getting Siren to talk to him again.

It was going to be yet another long day…


	9. Chapter 8

Author's Notes: Woah, this is WAY beyond overdue. Last chapter was in what, July? I've been a bad author, so I shall attempt to make it up to you now with actual… actualness? Well, anyway, you're not here for my lame excuses, so I best just get to what is important anyway. So, longer chapter? And yes, I named the GF ability Move-Find as Sense here. Because, honestly, Sense makes more… well, sense.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 8

"It's… beautiful."

Not the most creative thing to say, but there isn't much more that the can come up with. The green tinge to everything, the softly glowing, water-like substance around the spire, and the pale green glow from the odd spire itself… the effect was not only eerie, but stunning. That and the feeling it made in him, the yearning from Siren (who was still not talking to him), the echoes of spells at his command. It was familiar and strange at the same time. The feeling of a draw point, but at the same time, it didn't feel at all like a draw point.

"It's a mako fountain. A point on the planet where the mako gushes forth of its own will. They call it a miracle of nature. Over years this fountain will produce natural, unrefined or condensed materia. Natural materia tends to be stronger than refined, but it takes longer to form."

Cloud nodded his agreement to the words of Nanaki, and all the while Nida moved closer to inspect the 'mako fountain'.

"A great man once told me that the wisdom of the Cetra is held in the materia, because it's made of mako and mako is the lifeblood of the planet, something we all return to. Interacting with that knowledge allows us to use it. This is one of the purposes of mako. Unfortunately, it is that knowledge from those people that leads to mako poisoning. While not necessarily toxic on its own, the overflow of memories, emotions, lifetimes, can lead one to insanity. So it's best not to come into contact with free flowing mako."

Nida barely even acknowledged the words of Cloud, instead paying close attention to the feel of the energy here. All spells, after all, had a unique feel to them. While some you could hazard guesses at before you'd had experience with them (like knowing that a spell had to be somewhere in the blizzard chain), other spells from draw points were ones you hadn't experienced before, and thus hard to define until you used them. This was one of those points he could not define in any manner. In fact, he wasn't completely sure that it even was a draw point. Luckily there was a perk to having Siren around, even when she wasn't being very cooperative.

_Sense_, whispered in the back of his mind called forth the ability unique to his GF, something that added an extra level of sensory perception, used to find young draw points back home, things new to the surface and thus yet to leave a visible mark on the surrounding environment. No sooner had he cloaked himself in the senses of Siren than he saw it, the tell-tale coiling of energy around the glowing stones, rising into the air before dissipating. The beautiful blue and white coil of magic.

"Cloud, Nanaki, I thank you for bringing me here. You were correct; this place does mean something to me. I can feel the magic radiating from this point…"

Mindful of Cloud's comment about not touching the mako itself, Nida held a hand out, leaving his fingertips to hover just over the mako-slick rock. His fingers were tingling from the sheer energy. No one had tapped this point in many a year, he could tell. The energy was eager for release.

"I suggest that you back up a few steps, and don't blink. I don't know how this is going to react to being drawn from."

Without further explanation, Nida reached out in his mind, both to his lovely lady Siren, and to the spire of stone. A whispered command, a moment of tense waiting, and then he could sense the magic in the stone recoiling from him before launching out. Warmth filled him, radiating out much like it did from the stone, but still he couldn't tell just what he'd found, only that he'd found a lot of it.

_Hyne, what is this power?_

_I know nothing like it back home, but it's so pleasant. Warm and sweet, like the breeze over the fields of Balamb on a late spring day._

For a moment Nida was almost sure he'd gotten a response from Hyne himself, and his stomach revolted at that idea. The last thing he needed after all of this confusion, and having memories of the war drudged up was the voice of Hyne echoing in his head. He wasn't of Zelbalga blood, he had no interest in hearing the voice of god, much less coming to possess Hyne's power. Of course, he realized after a moment that it had only been the voice of Siren. Apparently she'd chosen to break her silence for the moment.

_Have you ever encountered a spell quite like this?_

_Never before, my hawk, but it makes me think of home. Does it not you?_

_It does. It really does._

And frankly, Nida wasn't appreciating the homesickness it was causing.

_Does it strike you to be like some other spell you have encountered?_

_I'm sorry Nida._

That was, of course, a bad sign. Siren wasn't one for using first names very often, and the few other times she had used it had all be in rather poor situations for him. Like the thing with that Ruby Dragon. Or the fight with a Zelbalga axe-man Orion, a man who had almost killed him.

_I wish Eden were around, he'd be able to identify it for you, or another one of the older spirits._

_Don't worry my lady, I am better served with you at my side than any other Guardian._

With that he broke off their conversation and turned to regard Cloud and Nanaki. Again he had seemed to have left them in shock. Suddenly it didn't seem like such a bad thing that the other three of their expedition had chosen to wait outside of the fountain's cave.

"This place, it's a lot like a draw point back home, a place from which we can use para-magic to draw forth more magic. The light you would have seen is the condensation of that magical energy before it enters a person and becomes usable. I could have redirected it for a direct cast, but I would have been unleashing an unknown magic upon the two of you."

"So this is how you draw your magic?" Nanaki asked, moving forward to take a better look at the fountain that Nida's fingers were still hovering close to.

"Yes, but we can also draw from other people as well as animals and monsters. There are also stones, but that is another story that I may have already told you. I'm not very sure anymore. But, what it comes down to is that I've never encountered a spell like this before, not with this feel, and neither has Siren. For all I know I've found an extremely destructive spell."

_But it does not feel like that. No fear, no malicious intent, just… home._

"Or I've found something a useful as Aura with a different purpose. There is no way to know without using the spell, and no way to use it without risking a poor outcome. All I know about it is that it feels… like home. But that makes no sense."

"Then why don't we just take you into battle and see what it is capable of?"

A simple answer to a less than simple problem. It was the only answer he had though.

"Wait," Nanaki cut in, "You say it feels like what?"

"Home."

The lion creature seemed to ponder this for a few moments, before nodding to himself.

"Cid has told me that your… Siren, can manifest in the physical realm outside of battle. Might we use this to speak with her?"

"I guess, but I don't see the point of…"

"I have an idea," Nanaki responded simply before sitting back on his haunches.

"Your ideas are rarely wrong," comes from Cloud and soon the swordsman is moving to join the lion. "So come on, Nomura, let's see the lady."

"Siren isn't the sort that just shows up to chit-chat just because you want her to."

_It is alright, my hawk, I would like to hear what it is they want from me, and if they will only speak to me in person, so to speak, then I shall allow it. Relax, they will not be able to take me from you. _

Then there is the feel of a warm hand on his arm, pushing it down and away from the spire. The hand falls away, and Nida slowly moves to take a seat next to Nanaki, not once meeting the eyes of the beautiful spirit before him, as solid as she is during any summoning, far more so than she normally is during their conversations.

_This place is an amazing source of magical energy, _she comments, and her musical voice actually echoed around the room. Normally the voices of Guardians didn't echo, even in places where a pin fall would. Their words were manifest directly in the minds of those listening, not actual vocalizations like those of a human. This whole situation was getting weird.

_I haven't had the pleasure of being so solid outside of a battle before. It's marvelous. My hawk, you should let me out to play some more. Carby has always said the world was fun, and even sister Shiva told me once or twice I should actually ask you to let me out for a game, but I'm so sure she always meant a fight. What a masochist that one, you'd think she liked the violence!_

"Siren, please focus. Nanaki wanted to ask you something, remember?"

_You're such a spoil-sport little sparrow. Fine, I'll play nice, but you have to promise me that I can play later, maybe with that Yuffie girl, she looks so nice!_

"Of course," Nida responded, already feeling tired. He could remind her later just how draining it could be to have a GF manifest outside of battle when they were existing on the same plane as their summoner. Were it not for the intense magic of this place, Nida was sure he would probably have passed out the second she had appeared. Whatever it was that was giving the Guardian such as solid form was also helping to support her presence here. A small blessing indeed.

"Lady Siren, are you capable of entering objects that are not mithril? Mister Nomura told us yesterday that you can inhabit objects composed of mithril when not inhabiting the mind of a sentient being."

_Yes I can, Nanaki was it? Every one of my kind has their preferences of course. Ifrit likes fiery places, especially if lava is present, so I think he's kept in a lava lamp. How silly. And darling Quez is in that computer half of the time. I think she likes it. We either enter objects like mithril, objects that are sentient, monsters, objects of a similar composition to us, or something that we can slightly alter the composition of to better facilitate our presence._

This Nida had heard of before, from the studies Squall had sanctioned in Esthar, but never from a Guardian itself. They weren't all gossips like Siren though, and she was just humoring them because she liked being outside once in a while. Yet Nida could not see where Nanaki was going with this line of questioning.

"So, you would be capable of entering something like a liquid with a high concentration of magical and spiritual energy?"

_Yep. Though it isn't exactly the most common choice for our kind. What if someone drank the liquid by mistake? That would be unpleasant for all parties involved._

"Could you then enter the mako from which Mister Nomura drew forth the magic?"

_I believe that would be possible. Again, it is not common practice, and I'm pretty sure the only one of my kind that would do that on a more regular basis would be Carbuncle. That's one adventurous spirit. But I've always felt in tune with draw points, so I don't see why I couldn't try. What, do you have a reason you'd want me to enter this liquid here? Didn't you tell my Nida that the stuff can poison your mind?_

"Indeed it can, but I believe that as a creature of magic, one that regularly inhabits the mind of another sentient creature, you would not be affected in the same way that a human would be. It is possible you would be able to converse with the spirits and ask them just what powers they have imparted to Nida."

"Wait," Nida cut in, shocked. Why hadn't he thought of this himself? He was supposed to be the one with knowledge about the GFs and para-magic, and here was one that knew nothing easily coming up with a solution. "what if I lose her in there? I wouldn't lose Siren to some risky plan just to find out what a single spell is! This is not a risk I can allow!"

Because when it came down to it, this was a major risk. If Siren went into that liquid, got lost in the memories Cloud said existed, and didn't come back, what would happen to him? He'd be truly alone here, without anything from home, with no access to his magic, with nothing at all except his uniform and memories. For the first time in a long time he would be well and truly alone, in a way he didn't like the thought of at all.

"I have no intention of sending her into the mako itself," Nanaki said with a sigh, his tail flicking from one side to another. Quistis's cat did that sometimes, when it was impatiently waiting for Nida to feed it because Quistis was busy or something. It didn't appreciate how hard those manual can openers could be at times. "But rather a brief contact. That is all one would need. If that gives us just the littlest idea more we could see if the feeling she gets from the fountain and your spell is like the feeling in any of the spells in our materia. Not as simple as a battle, but less physical risk of a backfire."

"But…"

_I'll do it, but only if you promise to keep my little hawk silent. I fear he is growing to worry more than is really necessary. Do we have a deal?_

Cloud nodded for Nanaki, and before Nida could react he found himself under the hold of a sleep spell. Damn rapid casting bastards. With his voice taken away all he could really manage without seeming like a pouting child was a dirty glare at the summon. This they would have to talk about later.

"Now, Lady Siren, if you would…"

The spirit nodded and stooped next to the fountain. At the new range, the amount of green light washing over the spirit almost made her look like nothing more than a ghost… something helped along by the fact that the second she brushed a long finger against the liquid her body lost some of its solidarity, beginning to turn opaque. The moment her fingers pulled away the effect diminished though, the translucent becoming solid once more, though the look on her face was not the 'happy to help you' it had been moments before. Instead it was an expression of shock.

"What did you feel, Lady Siren?"

_I… felt home. It was calling out to me. I could sense them all there: Shiva, Leviathan, even Bahamut. I could feel it. _

"Could feel what?" Nanaki insisted.

_Not like what I felt with Nida. It wasn't Balamb I could feel. No, that was my home, the higher planes where we exist when we are not with humans. Where we rest, where we revel of our own. But I haven't been able to reach out for there since we arrived in this place. And even now I could not breach this wall I sensed between me and it. But there is no doubt, this was home._

To this Nanaki nodded, "I see. Well, this answers our question as to what magic you have taken from this point, Nomura. What you have found is a mako fountain enriched with the knowledge of a spell we call Exit."

"Exit? I had no clue that this fountain handled that sort of magical knowledge," Cloud said with a sigh. "That, I suppose, would be why I've never found a materia here. Probably picked clean often enough…"

The whole time this little conversation was going on, though, Nida sat there with his arms crossed over his chest. Let him look like he was pouting for all he cared. This was not fair. He couldn't get a word in edgewise if everyone keeled over and died. Silence spells were just plain wrong. How exactly was he supposed to demand answers like this? Okay, so maybe not demand, but still, answers would be appreciated right now, like what an 'exit' spell did, how his Guardian was holding up to this experience, maybe even what exactly it would mean for him to have this certain kind of magic at his disposal.

_My dears, this all sounds frightfully interesting, but I feel I must point out that my darling falcon looks like he's going to explode if you don't let him speak. Look, he's so cute when he's red in the face. Maybe I should fetch that Highwind character, I'm sure he'd help my falcon…_

"Oh," Cloud said after a moment, before searching around in a pocket for something. Soon a vial of teal liquid was brought out and held out to Nida. "Echo screen. Removes a silence spell."

Nida knew that of course, but he couldn't point that out. Instead he just took the vial from the blond, and quickly drank the liquid down, massaging his throat right afterwards to encourage it to work faster.

"So," Nanaki continued, "it seems that this day has given us many answers, and a few new questions."

"Such as?" Nida finally got out, though he didn't much appreciate how raw his voice sounded. Apparently the echo screens in this place were of a lower quality than those that Odine had developed back before Adel had taken over Esthar. If he had to admit one thing about the bastard who had probably landed him here, it was that he was too smart for his own good. The arrogance he delighted in was well founded. Damn bastard.

"We know now that your magic does, indeed, run on properties quite unlike our own. We have discovered that your Guardian can interact with mako in a way that no other living being is capable of any longer. The last one died away three years previous. We have also learned just what magic this place gives, which might seem like something minor to you, but is important to some research that Reeve is currently working on. And, finally, we've discovered something quite interesting…"

_This plane of existence is connected to my own, which is connected to where Nida is from._

"The lady has this right," Nanaki said, rising and bowing his whole body to her a bit. "If her plane of existence is parallel to ours, and yours is parallel to hers, then yours must be parallel to ours. We've also heard it from her that there is something keeping her from entering that plane of existence, which could pose a problem if we were to attempt to return you to where you are from without enough forethought."

"Hyne…"

And, just like that, Nida knew just what had gone wrong to bring him to this place.

For all of his genius when it came to working with magical energies, something had gone wrong for Odine. The man had failed to compress time, instead compressing planes of existence, or maybe dimensions. Not those parallel time frames, which Nida would have easily been able to return to by recreating the experiment with technology he might be able to come across and a sorceress, but actual differing planes of reality.

_What is wrong my hawk?_

It occurs to him that maybe that echo screen didn't work very well, because no matter how many times he opens his mouth, tries to express what he's thinking in rational words, no sound escapes him. He can't explain to Siren, can't explain to Cloud or Nanaki, can't even explain it to himself out loud.

There is no way for him to get home.

* * *

Words didn't make their way back to Nida until well after the adventuring group had returned to Rocket Town. After the initial lack of vocalization and Siren's returning to him, Nanaki and Cloud had decided that it was beyond time to take the shocked SeeD back. And Nida, still dazed from the revelation, had not even noticed the fact that Cid had spent the whole time hovering around him, trying to get him to say something, do something, or react in some way. After a while Reeve and Vincent had convinced the concerned pilot to back off and leave Nida to his thoughts. And even those thoughts didn't get him peace.

_Please, little one, tell me, what is wrong. If you don't, I'll be forced to look for that information on my own and for all you know I'll accidentally have you 'remembering' that you're Zell instead of yourself. You don't want to be Zell, now do you?_

The threats of the Guardian went ignored by Nida as he played back all of the information he had come have, and what it meant. The difference between here and home wasn't time. Time could be handled. The difference between here and home wasn't space either. There was no amount of journeying that would get him home, no number of miles walked, days spent searching, and nothing would get him home. Things were a bit more complicated than that.

It wasn't until much later that night that words finally found themselves escaping the young SeeD, and even then they weren't all that willing.

Cid caused it, no surprise there. When dinner had finished, Nida had found himself out in front of the house, resting under a large tree. The silence had helped to clear his mind enough to determine the exact problems that had arisen, something Odine would have understood far more quickly than Nida had. He'd actually started to nod off too, something he no doubt needed considering the fact that the concerns were quickly making him sleepy. Maybe he'd actually even fallen asleep, because one minute he was alone, the next there was a cold bottle being pressed against his cheek to get his attention. It was Cid, and a bottle of beer.

"Here, you look like you need it."

"Thank you."

The older man didn't even falter when Nida spoke, just nodded. In silence they sat there for a little while, neither opening the bottle, neither saying anything, just looking out at the night sky. Then, as one, the bottles were opened, and touched together in a silent toast.

"Being quiet ain't gonna solve nothing," Cid said, after the first sip.

"Talking isn't exactly going to do so either."

"Better than nothing."

Nida's turn to sip at the alcohol, a taste he didn't really like but something that Cid was right about him needing.

"There are, so far as research has shown, three major means of travel in the world. The translation, the compression, and the rotation."

"Sounds like math there."

"Science too, so you better shut up if you wanna know."

So for an hour the pair sat there, sipping away at their beers, nursing them really so that they'd last, and Nida explained the findings Odine had been toying with for years. About how translations were what you did every day, moving from point A to point B. Something that was easy to fix, easy to change, easy to get back from. He pointed out that he wasn't suffering from a translation, or maybe life would be a whole heck of a lot easier then. Then Nida talked about compressions, like that which Ultimecia attempted to perfect for her plans for dominating existence. Compressions weren't too hard to fix either. All you had to do was get rid of that which was compressing things together and they would spring back to what they were supposed to be, like a spring wound too tight and then released. If he was suffering in a compression that wouldn't be impossible to fix. Yes, it would be harder than a translation, but he'd survived a compression before and wasn't about to let another stop him from getting home.

What Nida had discovered he was suffering from was in fact a rotation. The name was, of course, far from straight forward. Rotation just implies spinning, or turning, something fixed as easily as a translation. Truth of the matter was that Odine used this term when speaking of moving through different dimensions. So Nida went on to explain how atoms, the things that make up all existence, take up space and all vibrate at the same frequency. Yet since there was so much space, other atoms had to exist, just vibrating at another frequency. And thus multiple plains of reality could in fact exist one within another within another within another. The wrong kind of shock could set atoms vibrating at another frequency, setting them into another existence without their even realizing it. Of course, there was no proof that this had ever been done before, but if what was going on here was even real, if any of this was real and not just a dream or a coma or he was insane, then this was most likely what had happened, and he had no hope at all.

The only way you could cure a rotation was with equal and opposite force to what had originally changed your frequency, and praying to god it got you back to where you belonged.

By the time he's done explaining this, and about how even a Sorceress couldn't create a rotation alone, how it had to be a combination of Rinoa and the machine Odine had created, and who knows what else, he's in tears. Not the kind of tears that would have him sobbing mind you, just quiet tears. Nothing to make his breathing irregular, or make his shoulders shake or any of that embarrassing stuff, just tear after tear after tear. He can't stop them either. There was no way home for him, no way back where he belonged, no proof other than Siren that he really belonged somewhere else.

"Yanno," Cid said, when the explaining was done, "might be a bigger mercy if you're actually crazy or in a coma or something. Because then you'd at least be able to hope that someday you'd wake up or something like that. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to be gone from here and never be able to get back."

"I can tell you that it sucks," Nida grumbled under his breath before finishing his beer. "Sucks like… a fucking black hole."

The older man doesn't say anything, and for that Nida is very thankful. Right now he doesn't know if he can handle any sort of comfort. Doesn't know if he can even handle someone saying 'it's going to be alright' even though that is total bullshit. It's not going to be okay…

"Well, I gotta admit, this is fucked up. And it kinda seems like you're screwed."

That wonderfully sensitive statement earns Cid a dirty look.

"Hey, I wasn't done yet, kid. I was saying, kinda seems like you're screwed. But ya know what… some smartass once told me that the world isn't going to stop if you give yourself the chance to rest. Damn idiot was right. It ain't gonna stop, hell, it never does. Thing about it is that it doesn't matter if it stops or not. You still got time, and so long as you got time, you got hope. So what you are gonna do right now is get yourself some damn sleep, and we'll figure out some damn ass way to get you home tomorrow."

"Cid, I…"

"Don't you make no excuses either. You've got the fucking world heroes three times over on your side, you think we're going to give up just because it's hard? If we did that then who knows where the fuck this place would be today with that silver-haired psychopath. Trust me, when I tell you that we're not gonna stop, even if you want us to, until we get you home then I sure as fucking hell mean it."

"Cid…"

"So you just better be ready for when we send you home because it sounds like your boss won't be happy with a 'hey, sorry, I've been on another planet in another reality for the last week so do you mind if I just take it all as paid leave?' Understand? Besides, you won't be happy with yourself if you don't help us out, right? So get your lazy ass into bed!"

"Cid…"

"What the fuck kid, why are you still out here? Shouldn't you be marching your ass into the shower and then taking yourself into that goddamn bed and getting some fucking sleep?"

"Highwind…"

"What the fuck is it already?"

"Shut up."

"Why…"

"That is an order Captain, and I do have a higher rank than you do."

Which of course lead to a series of curses from the older man, and gave Nida the perfect chance to steal away his bottle of beer. Cid didn't like this much either, and the curses only intensified. Until Nida kissed him that was.

"What was that for?" Cid asks, when Nida's pulled away, "You were fucking crying just ten minutes ago."

"Maybe, but I think I've found a better use for my time, Captain Highwind."

"Such as?"

Nida gives him the kind of smile he reserved for use only when he was dealing in bad jokes. "Just so you know, I'm very hands on when it comes to debriefing my men… Some say that I could do with a less… hands on approach."

This got the older man smiling, "You're a master of the mood swings, General. One has to wonder how you got your rank."

"My superiors liked the way I could breeze through any situation. I'm more than just lip service like some other people."

The smile only widened as Cid quickly got to his feet and pulled Nida up as well. "Well then, General, I expect I should figure out if you're someone worth following or if I should request reassignment…"

Except, after a moment, the playful atmosphere is dropped, and Cid is pulling Nida close. The smiles are gone, and while there is another kiss, it's more hesitant on both sides.

"You sure you're okay kid?"

"No. I know I'm not okay. All the more reason to try to ignore it long enough to get to sleep."

A silent nod of consent comes from Cid, and then they are heading inside.

Sometimes, cares are better left for the morning.


	10. Interlude

Author's Notes: I'm a bad girl. I've been neglecting again. But I'm here now and there is much work to be done. So let us start with no hesitation. An interlude, but I assure you a full chapter will be here very very soon. In fact, I'll be writing it once I finish this. Hopefully everyone remembers the prologue, because this continues that form of story telling.

Pilot Wings: Interlude

_To be perfectly honest, Cid wasn't the best I'd ever had, still isn't. Even with years of teaching, guiding, and gentle words I don't think he'd ever come close. His hands are rough with time, and are a little too gentle, as if fearing to leave the smallest marks. I won't claim his kisses to be sweet either, frankly it's like kissing an ashtray, and one that is at first timid and then far too possessive. In bed he treats you first as a china doll, and then loses any control he had to maintain that. He's rough, he's crude, and he's got no sense of pace..._

_But that isn't important really. I didn't care, not the first time and not since. After that first time I was almost shocked really, that something so far from what I'd known before could still feel right. Since then I've decided it's because it was Cid, and that was what mattered. So what if he swore half the time? Or that despite his attempts to leave me unmarked I ended up with bruises that did not leave me for weeks? It was still him, and I cherished the memory after I left. It didn't make the leaving any easier really, though I tried to argue that it did._

_Disillusionment. It was a term I didn't really understand before that night, just as I didn't understand homesickness, or other such things. I could define it from any dictionary, I'd seen the affects it had on people after both wars. Those men and women had believed so hard that things would go back to how they were before the war, and when it didn't, couldn't, they would just break down. Happened during the wars too, and among the SeeD ranks. Back then I couldn't comprehend how people could live in a world like that, be mercenaries and soldiers in the midst of war, and still believe death would not strike those close to them. Of course I hadn't felt it myself, too used to the idea too early on to really run the risk of hoping we could do much, and fighting anyway. When the bloodshed ended I was sure, somewhere deep inside, that I'd never experience such a debilitating condition._

_Some fool I had been._

_That night, while Cid slept peacefully between the sheets of the bed he'd given me, I thought. On the edge of that bed I sat, and I thought. About the wars I had been through, and the scars decorating my body. I thought of the mission gone wrong that had brought me here, and the assurance of these heroes of their own wars that they would return me to my home. Of Siren and what we'd learned at the mako fountain, of the Tiny Bronco and the Ragnarok, of Shera and Yuffie and all the rest, and of Cid. I thought of home, Garden, Squall, and everything that was suddenly completely out of reach. Considered and threw away the idea that I was dreaming, that this was a result of a coma caused by the machines in Odine's office exploding and striking my head. I thought of so many things, but mostly of Cid, and of home, and of the words Siren had given to me._

_I thought about how there really was no way to go to the only place I'd ever called home._

_Soon enough I'd risen and gathered the uniform that had been abandoned on the floor, and wrinkled for our haste. While Cid slept peacefully, aided by the gentle kiss of a sleep spell of a materia, as Siren would not allow the para-magic to do the same on my own, I dressed. Then I slipped from the room and moved through the house. It was little trouble back then to select a damaged spear and break the head off, leaving me a decent sized pole, and to find a sack into which to shove some food that would keep long enough to act as provisions. Looking back, I was on autopilot really, my body moving as training demanded, supplying and arming myself to flee from enemy territory while I still could, taking whatever would be useful. A first aid kit because Cid could replace it easily, some materia and a bracer because they seemed plentiful and my GF was not cooperating. A small piece of mithril wire that had been twisted into a harp and placed on a chain, something I later learned had been made for me by Tifa and Yuffie while I'd been in the mountains with the others. _

_I left no note, no sign I'd been there beyond memory and what I'd taken. _

_Moving through the village had been too easy, training instantly kicking in yet again and guiding me through darkness to the edge of town with no trouble. And when Siren began to act up, to lecture me, it was little effort at all to move her attachment in my mind to the stolen jewelry, which she most definitely did not appreciate. While I was loathe to give up such a source of perception and protection, it seemed necessary at the time, and I did not think twice on it. In fact, I didn't think twice on anything once I'd risen from that bed, merely acted as training had dictated, and removed myself from the pain that thought had given. _

_Without a doubt I had become a creature only of training. Such is how my disillusionment with the idea, hope, need to get home had left me. _

_The only thing I remember, even now, about those first few hours of travel was that I had only the light of stars to guide me, and the mountains were my goal. Still I do not know how I managed to make my way through the twisting paths I'd only barely seen before and down into the village on the other side by morning. Sneaking past there had been no small task though, what with the daylight now my enemy and the people early risers. So I spent that day secreted away in an abandoned mansion, eating what little my training said I would need in that time, and carefully clearing the way to one of the upstairs rooms, which I then locked against the creatures that filled the house. _

_I still don't know how I managed to make it from Nibelheim to Cosmo Canyon alive on the supplies I had. What I do know was that after my disappearance and the resulting search, Nanaki had told the people of Cosmo Canyon to treat me kindly if I arrived, and thus I was restocked appropriately, given clothes better suited to travel without destroying my uniform (which they fixed while I rested in the inn that night), and pointed me off in the safest direction. Nor can I tell you how I managed to make it to Gongaga, just that I did, and it was there that, save for that night in Cosmo Canyon, I finally was freed of the training that had been telling me to move, and move fast. _

_The couple that took me in was kind, they had lost a son, which I apparently reminded them of in one way or another. And slowly, under their care, I began to regain myself from the depression that had been threatening just beyond the urge to _move.

_I don't know how long I was there, but it was in that small town that the world came back to me, like it or not._


	11. Chapter 9

Author's Notes: See, I get back to it quickly like promised. PLUS I get back to the standard format. Oh yeah, I hope you like action and talking and emotions...

P.S.: From the moment that they enter the circle to the moment that Nida's finally let to his feet is more than 3k words. Longest fight I've ever written. By far.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 9

"You know, this would go _so _much faster if you would just release your strangle hold on my magic."

_Give me a good reason to do so, little chicken. _

"I don't have to let you out to play as often as I do."

_Nope, far from good enough. You'll have to do it the old fashioned way, or use one of those materia things._

Let no one claim that her kind had short memories.

Ever.

Time for a new approach then.

"If you don't do this, the task will take me to sundown, which means you won't be able to put me into my place today."

This actually got a reaction from the ethereal woman perched in a nearby tree, for she waved her hand dismissively, and with it he could feel his spells coming back into his reach. With a grin he put down the bucket he'd been hauling off to the well for what felt like the millionth time in his life and instead focused inwardly. Soon a great ball of water had formed over the field he was working, held in place by the very magic he'd used to call it forth. With the liberal application of a tornado spell, tightly reined in by a mixture of his developing control and the ancient mastery of the translucent woman in the tree, the water swirled out in the air, changing from orb to a disc. This was raised a bit higher by that same wind energy, and finally released a little at a time.

When the light, and artificial, rain had ended and the field was finally watered the magic within him was once more firmly clamped down, denied to him by the woman.

"Oh, now you're just being a bitch."

_And you, a stubborn fool. I'd expect it from Zell, not from you. _

The reaction was almost to be expected, but if one watched the woman, there was undoubtedly a faint smile coloring her features as the man flinched in response to her insult. For an insult it was, if only he of all people knew it. His reaction was just as she had expected though, instantly grabbing up a staff that had been abandoned at the edge of the field and walking away. Her small smile became a grin of delight as she slipped easily from the tree and followed him out into a part of the land covered by grass instead of crops, and even that cut low in a circle in this particular area, their sparring ring. When he'd reached the far side, the young man whirled on her, staff raised before him defensively, waiting for her response.

Still smiling, delicately though, the woman raised her hands before her, and grew still. Neither he nor her was surprised when a staff formed in her hands, today more of wind than of the water she favored. Her small feet made no sound and disturbed no blade of grass as they slid into position in the ring, mimicking his stance, though with a grace and perfection that could not be attained by any mortal being. Yet this was no mortal being.

She was the Lady of the Waters and Winds, Glorious Goddess of Silence. Many were her titles, but ultimately it came down to the simplest two: Guardian Force, and Siren.

Never before had Siren even considered going easy on her opponent, and today would be no change.

There was no actual signal to begin, just a tensing of muscles that didn't exist as the spirit threw herself at the young man. He easily took the testing strike to his own staff, ducked the lightning fast kick she aimed for his head, and side-stepped the following blast of wind she sent at him with but a glance. Of course neither of them were impressed with this, it was their standard opening. What followed was what was important.

Nida knew that just as much as Siren, and yet he didn't take the obvious moves that were presented from this point. As open as the spirit seemed at the moment, she was anything but. Since their first session he had learned that any attack could be easily deflected with the flick of her wrist, glance of her eye, or even twitch of her wings. He'd also learned that those same wings were more than just pretty additions to the woman's appearance: they were capable of sustained flight, unleashed powerful winds at every beat, were as hard as mithril, and the edges of each feather were as sharp as razors. Going for an attack at this point would either find this latest staff damaged, or his arm cut if he didn't pull back in time.

Truth be told, the battle against a Guardian Force was always a defensive battle, the hope that the spirit would fatigue their power supply faster than the fighter would their stamina. Considering this was their fourth fight this week alone, he was coming to know this fact better than any other. Not to mention the fact that a weapon made of water or wind in a Guardian's hands did not remain the same from one second to the next.

Siren's own staff swept through the air, intended for his head, and his only defense was to raise his own weapon to block. While it opened his side it was far more reliable than dodging back, the staff could easily stretch in length or he could misjudge the reach of the invisible winds. Sometimes one had to give in to the danger of one defense for the assurance of what other attack would come. Sure enough one of Siren's hands moved from the weapon to claw at his side. Here was another thing that study had failed to present about the power of GFs: some areas of their physical or astral forms could be changed at will. The first time he'd encountered that fact had left deep gouges in his side from an attack much like this one, left by fingernails that had seemed to extend only for that very purpose.

At least this attack he could safely roll away from, keeping the constant safety of his staff between his head and the winds of Siren's own weapon. Once free from the immediate danger the man crouched down to sweep at his opponent's feet, something the Guardian easily retreated from. That had been his intention of course, and as the sweep reached halfway in the intended arc he quickly rose to his feet, lifting the weapon with him in what would mimic a boxer's uppercut. Just barely the blow connected with the delicate chin of the beautiful woman, and then slid easily to the side by the magic at her command. This too was another opportunity, as the magic, even for a second, distracted her from the physical attacks, and allowed Nida to close in on the woman, bringing one end of the staff down at her feet.

Watching, one would almost think that this was a carefully crafted dance, the way every blow just glanced so easily off of the woman, who seemed to be miming the fight herself. Truth was that Nida was more in danger fighting here and now than he'd ever been, even fighting Ruby Dragons. No magic did he have at his beck and call, no comforting and familiar spirit to fall back on, not even the ability to see where the weapon that was after him would land. Previous battles had left him not quite dead, but often enough wishing he had been before the spirit had finally decided he'd learned enough for the day and healed him of her own accord.

But he was getting better, so very much better. Not enough to land an actual blow, but enough so that he wasn't being hurt nearly as often as the first fight had left him.

Now he's dodging as the weapon held by the spirit lashes out again, except this time he can only see it being held in one of her hands. Even though he had brought the staff up between him and the anticipated blow, nothing came at first. Then there was a sharp pain in his cheek, a cut dealt there somehow right before he could feel a pulling at his staff, the spirit grinning as a sharp tug of her hand ripped his weapon away.

A whip. The cunning and ancient bitch had formed her winds into a whip on the whim. It was completely new, completely unexpected, and left him with a gift and no means to protect himself. As if to further this point the golden woman smiled once the staff was in her hands. Energy flared in the air for a moment as powerful winds ate away at the wood in her hands, cracking and weakening the weapon.

Just as suddenly as the weapon had been pulled away it was being tossed back at him. She didn't call out, didn't warn him, and didn't have to. The widening of the spirit's eyes, the fear, and the urgency of her motion had been more than enough to warn him. Nida caught the weapon in the same movement that turned his body to the attack that had to be coming from behind him.

It was likely that the staff saved his life, for no sooner was it before him in a block than a blade was cutting through the air where he'd been standing. Unfortunately such was the blow that it easily cut through the already weakened middle of the weapon, leaving in each hand a stick roughly the same length. And a swordsman still before him, slowly raising his weapon from the blow that would likely have cut through his skull with ease. There was murder in the eyes of this new opponent, and here was Nida, unarmed.

Well, at least that was what it obviously looked like. Nida even seemed to relent, his hands, still clinging to the remains of what had once been his weapon as his arms hung limply at his sides. Yet this lasted only long enough for the swordsman to give him a slightly surprised look, and for the winds of the spirit to swirl around him for a minute. The weight of the sticks in his hands changed in that wind, as by her power Siren carefully but quickly cut the sticks. A simple gust was all it took to change the remains of what had once been a serviceable and full length bo into a pair of tambo, stick weapons carefully cut so that their length was exactly that of the length from his tops of his ankles to his hip sockets. With that simple task completed, Nida threw himself at the swordsman before him.

The major difference between the usage of tambo and the bo was the speed, and the lack of entrapment in the former. The bo emphasized footwork as much as tambo, as well as accuracy of blows, but the weapon was meant for strong strikes and swings, for take downs, catching your opponent in ways that would immobilize them, and keeping them at a distance. Tambos were quicker weapons that gave up space for the speed of blows it could rain down, strength given from the elbows and shoulder rather than the back hand of the bo. Not only that, but the tambo was a weapon that could be used much like swords in some of it's attack possibilities.

Just feel of the weapons in his hands changed Nida's perception of his opponent, from a three dimensional figure that one could work around, strike head on, or trip up, into something flat. Edges were where you put a tambo into use, quickly and sharply enough to break bones and make the opponent retreat. More than anything, Nida knew how to take advantage of the shock that came from changing weapons like this. Suddenly this swordsman was just an outline to deliver blows to as quickly as possible in certain areas, keeping care only for the sword.

His first move was slipping inside of the man's defenses, the tambo in his left hand raising to push the long sword to the side as the right delivered quick whacks to ribs, elbow, shoulder, before a quick twisting of his body to bring the left forward allowed him the chance to smash the oaken stick into the temple of his enemy. The swordsman was faster than that though, once the first blow had come to his ribs he'd, instead of recoiling as expected, pushed closer in. While it may not have seemed like much, Nida was quite aware that the strength of the tambo came from striking from certain points on the length of the weapon to yield best speed and strength, and since the movement meant the blows were coming from closer to the holding hands, it also meant that the damage would be lessened. Once he twisted for the head shot the swordsman dodged back a step, bringing his own weapon up to knock the tambo aside, throwing Nida's balance off for a fraction of a second.

But even a fraction of a second could be fatal, Nida had learned that many times over with Siren, who could do nothing more to help him. Unless directly summoned in battle she could do nothing to aid him against another, only interact with him specifically. This fight was wholly up to his cunning and skill. Using the minor direction change and momentum added by the deflection, Nida twisted his body through a careful cartwheel, throwing a hand down against the ground to help guide him and pull his legs over even quicker to leave them out of the range of a sword slash, which quite predictably came. Once his feet were back on the ground Nida fell into a crouch, glaring at his enemy, and finally taking in something more than the blade being directed at him. What he saw did even less to comfort him than the sight of the sword had in the first place.

The man was blond, shockingly so, and his slightly glowing blue eyes were filled with battle lust. Leather clad hands shifted their grip on the hilt of the weapon before the man went to a one handed hold, and a second sword was pulled from a complicated harness on his back. No effort, no energy at all wasted as the man snapped the second sword somehow into the first, making the weapon bigger, heavier, and at the same time moving in for a slash that could have easily taken Nida's head from his shoulders. Another flip brought him to safety before he threw himself back into the fight, a defensive battle would do him no good with the range this man could attack from.

Apparently Cloud had been holding things back during their last fight, back on the day they had first met. How was Nida to know that Cloud used multiple weapons that interlocked after all? Then again, how could Cloud have known that Nida was skilled in more than just the standard battle techniques of a staff?

This fight was nothing like the last, no arrogance on either part, thinking they could take their enemy completely off guard. There was no one, that he or Siren could perceive at least, watching anxiously from the sidelines of their ring. Not once could Nida use the safety of a metal or even longer weapon to keep him far from the deadly edge of the strong sword, or direct sparks into Cloud's eyes when the weapons connected. He couldn't even be sure that Cloud wouldn't want to kill him, for whatever reason.

Everything was serious, deadly so, and silent to match. Not even the normally chattering Siren dared speak.

Once more Cloud struck out with his sword, the blade at a level that could easily take Nida's head from his shoulders were he to allow the blow to fall. He didn't, of course, instead ducking just under the weapon just in time to spare him damage, moving forward at the same time to close the distance. This time the body of the swordsman was angled at him, giving Nida new targets: knee; hip; stomach; and ribs; each dealt with an alternating hand as he moved up Cloud's body, and once the momentum had carried Clouds arm over his head, Nida had rolled to move. Rolled in the same direction the sword was traveling in, rather than away. He came up just as the blade finished moving over his head, and the momentum and loss of control from the blows caused Cloud to stumble forward. Quickly Nida rose his tambo and struck at the nearer arm with both weapons, bringing the butts down hard on the upper and lower arm. Normally such a blow would easily break an arm, but Nida held back a little this time as the blade went flying. Not for long of course, as he twisted and used the momentum of swinging his arm around his body to connect one wooden stick with Cloud's back, and to bring him to his knees.

As he felt the magic within himself raise once more, Nida quickly directed a protect spell between Cloud and the fallen sword, keeping the swordsman from his weapon. This didn't stop the blond though, who stumbled to his feet before launching himself at Nida, regardless of his weaponless state. This actually caught Nida off guard enough to cause him to take a step back, a mistake if there was ever one because any traction he could have found to brace against the blow was lost when his foot connected with a stone and caused his foot to slip. Not enough to damage his ankle, or make him fall, but enough that the tackle managed to knock him down. And no sooner was he on his back than Cloud was pinning him, arms tight at his sides and Cloud's easily straddling his chest and those arms. With Nida unable to move, the swordsman reached back, first one side than the other, to remove the tambo from his hands and cast them to the side. Not without having to put enough pressure on Nida's wrists to force him to release the weapons of course.

"This time you've got no chance to escape. You're beaten. Give up."

"Fuck you."

_Language, young finch, _Siren directed him from the edge of the ring.

Instead Nida began to call upon a float spell to remove Cloud from him, only to find the Guardian Force once more clamping powerfully down on his magic. Traitorous bitch.

_I heard that, you know._

Frankly, Nida didn't care. And he knew that she was well aware of it. They hadn't been on the best of terms in a while now.

"Thank you," Cloud directed at the spirit, seeming to sense what had passed between Nida and his spirit, but he didn't dare look away from Nida. That almost made the younger mercenary grin, at least he had one of the most feared warriors on this world cautious. Or maybe he just wanted to keep watching Nida to make sure he wasn't doing the mental withdraw required for those few seconds before people from his world had to experience before calling upon a spell they didn't have fixed in his mind.

No, it had to be the former, Cloud couldn't have known about the withdraw. They were just too different.

"What do you want, Strife?"

The blond said nothing for a while, seeming to get comfortable with his position, while at the same time making sure that he was stable enough that Nida wouldn't be throwing him off any time soon. Once he was satisfied the blond crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at the younger man.

"You ran away."

Great, this conversation was going to be one of obvious statements. Oh joy. This was going to be fun. In fact, Nida said precisely that.

It only earned him a further glare from the blond swordsman, close enough to an icy one he had known so long that Nida went very still and said nothing else. This was not something he wanted to cooperate with. Interrogations had never been his thing, especially when he was more than just unwilling, but recently beat in battle because of the stubbornness of a Guardian Force. And yet Cloud didn't move, didn't make any sounds, just stared down at Nida, and waited.

"Are you going to cooperate or am I going to have to leave you here all day?" Cloud asked after almost ten minutes of their staring contest, at which point Nida realized it was him that was holding this back, not Cloud. The blond expected nothing more than a peaceful conversation after what had really been nothing more than an intense spar. How many times had he not sought the same thing after a win or a loss?

It was almost awkward.

"I've got tasks to finish," he mumbled at last. This the swordsman took as a sign of cooperation, because soon he was standing and helping Nida to his feet. Then the two separated long enough to retrieve their respective weapons, though Cloud came back to the circle first, watching more likely than not as Nida frowned down at the sticks in his hands before sticking them through his belt loops.

"I didn't think it would break."

"You saw Siren I expect. We've been sparring lately and she decided today that it would be amusing to take my weapon."

Cloud nodded, almost in understanding though it was more than obvious to Nida that there was no way he could. How many people ever sparred with a Guardian Force after all, especially one who felt self-righteous and snubbed.

"What do you have left to do?"

Nida turned his attention to the field he'd abandoned for a quick spar, and gestured in that direction.

"I've already handled watering and checking for bugs. I've got to go back through and make sure there are no bugs and weed."

"Need help?"

Soon afterwards Nida and Cloud were moving through the rows of plants, the blond carefully and obediently weeding, only pulling up things that did not look like miniature versions of the plants around them. Though there were some times that the blond stopped to verify things with Nida, which amused the pilot to no end as he checked each plant one last time for the pests that would threaten not only yield, but the plant itself.

"I guess a city boy like you wouldn't understand how to care for plants," Nida joked after the fifth time Cloud summoned him for reference.

"I was born in Nibelheim, the town on the other side of the mountains from Rocket Town. Definitely not a city by any estimation. But my mother handled the vegetable patch, and the flowers all looked the same..."

"Whereas I'm a real city boy, raised away from all this agricultural stuff at least, and I still know it better than you."

"Well, you've had several months practice."

Nida froze in his work for just a moment, then brushed the comment off. While he hadn't been keeping track of time since he left Rocket Town, it was weird to hear he'd been away for so long. Or was it that he'd been here that long? No, he had to be how long he'd been away from Rocket Town or something, Cloud couldn't have known how long he'd been in this small village.

"The couple I'm living with and taking care of this for, they taught me really well."

Cloud nodded as he finally finished his first row of work, whereas Nida was already halfway through his third row. Practice did make perfect, and increased efficiency. And he'd had plenty of practice.

"Siren is still visible. I'm not seeing things."

It was a statement, not a question, and made more sense as Nida looked up to see the elegant Guardian walking amid the plants on the far side of the field, really more of a patch honestly, singling quietly and sweetly to the plants. According to the old couple the plants had never been doing better than they had since he'd arrived. He had his suspicions that it was Siren's doing, in thanks for the fact that they were caring for him. Despite the fact that they weren't getting on well, she still cared about and worried for her master.

"Yeah, she's good company at times."

"I thought her presence was draining to you."

Nida nodded, before realizing Cloud couldn't see him from where he worked. "Yes, very true. But I don't use much magic out here, materia or para-magic, beyond my work out here. I have more energy to support her. There is also something in the air here that gives us both energy. Like there was at that fountain, and in Cosmo Canyon."

"Mako," Cloud agreed easily. "There was a reactor near here once. Exploded and killed a lot of people in town, drastically decreased the population for a time. They say that even though it's gone, the Lifestream is closer to the surface here. The monsters are thus more magically inclined, and the people from this area that do use materia have far better mastery."

Both things Nida had noticed in his time in Gongaga. More than once he'd been called to take care of monster infestations after that first attack of what looked like frogs had attacked a farmer on the outskirts of the town. In payment the homesteads would pay him in what ways he could, which he would pass on to the old couple, the Fairs. Well, except for what came from and went to the owner of the supply store. The man doubled as a smith and weapon dealer for travelers, and accepted what Nida would give him in return for making new bos when Siren would leave them beyond repair or use. He'd have to get another soon.

As for the magic, his own control over both materia and para-magic had grown in his time here. Not to mention he'd finally discovered that, at Siren's allowance, he could indeed draw magic to restock what stores he had. Not that there was much variety to be found around in the Gongaga area, but it was something. Basic fire, ice, and surprisingly water, spells were plentiful here. Wind based spells like Aero and Tornado required a bit further of a hike, but he didn't mind the effort.

"So how did you find me?" Nida finally asked after a time of peaceful silence.

"Well, we doubted you had left the continent, you lack the proper money and from what you took it wasn't likely you could get the fare unless you sold the materia. And since last time we saw you, you weren't sure if using your magic was wise, we doubted you would abandon it..."

"That doesn't explain how you found me in this village."

Or had come to know where he worked in the days, since this was a bit from the home of the Fair couple. They wouldn't have told Cloud either, none of the villagers would have betrayed him like that. The trust in a small town was amazing, and awe inspiring.

"We heard about when you passed through Cosmo Canyon two days afterward. Searching for you in the wild seemed a bit ridiculous. So we sent someone ahead to the other major settlements you could wind up at. No one saw you for a while, so that left us a pretty reasonable guess as to where you weren't."

"I could have been dead."

Cloud only rolled his eyes before continuing. "Normally I get calls at least three times a year from Gongaga regarding monster problems. When I didn't get a normal one, I sent a message instead, to make sure things were okay. I received an answer that there was not enough of a problem to worry myself this year, and a traveler had taken care of what there was to deal with."

"Not much to go on."

"No. So I contacted the Fairs."

Nida froze in his inspections. Was his luck really so terrible that he'd wound up with friends of the very people he'd been fleeing from? Had they given him up so easily without telling him? Sent Cloud on here to find him? And he had trusted them...

"Their son..."

Was dead. Nida had heard that. Apparently their awareness of it was recent even though he'd passed a while before. He hadn't understood and they hadn't explained.

"I knew him, back when I was in Shin-Ra. He was a good man, my mentor and my best friend. He died to save me. They didn't know until about half a year ago, Shin-Ra never told them, and..."

It wasn't easy to give that kind of news to your best friend's family.

Nida quickly understood what had happened. Whoever had talked to Cloud had obviously opened up to someone their son had trusted so fully, told him easily about the quiet young man who had arrived in town, had needed help and shelter in the middle of a thunderstorm. How hard would it have been for the description they gave to match what Cloud knew? For him to be invited over by the two to surprise who they thought was an old friend of Cloud's, who had arrived at their door by chance?

"I see."

"I didn't come at first."

Which meant Cloud had known for a while, and had only come now for a reason. Maybe to kick Nida out of whatever funk he thought the pilot was in. Or to drag him back to Rocket Town. Cid had probably sent him.

"Oddest thing was, Cid was the one that convinced the girls not to hunt you down immediately and beat your skull in."

It was official, Nida wasn't going to get any more work done. He stood and brushed the dirt off the work pants that Mrs. Fair had used cloth that had been gifted to him for some work for another household to make for him. All of the clothes he wore now were made by Mrs. Fair, his uniform carefully folded and hidden away with a sack that was always prepared for the off chance that he chose to disappear once more.

"He did, did he?"

Cloud too stopped, standing and meeting Nida's eyes over a tall plant.

"Old man didn't even want me coming today."

That... that hurt more than Nida had expected it would, maybe because he hadn't expected it at all. There had been no time to prepare himself for such a revelation. So the old pilot was glad he was gone, glad he wasn't coming back, didn't even want people looking for him. Fine, Nida could live with that, live with it on top of everything else he had to live with since arriving in this world.

But that didn't mean that the revelation cut him any less deeply. Or that the ache in his chest was just there because he was sore from working too hard.

"Said you'd come back when you were good and ready to."

"That's okay, if he doesn't want me back then..." Okay, so he'd been ready to reply to a completely different thing. Couldn't Cloud just take pity and tell him everything rather than string him along, not that he didn't deserve it.

"I mean..."

"Though I think the more than that passed, the more worked up he seemed to get himself. Just before I heard about where you were he had stopped all work on the Tiny Bronco. At this point he pretty much sits around most of the day smoking and drinking tea, then goes out at night to drink."

Not only had he never expected so many words at once from Cloud, he hadn't expected the content. Nida stumbled from the row he'd been working before finally giving up and towards the tree Siren had once more perched in. When he leaned against the trunk the woman's ghostly hand lowered itself onto his head, gently playing with his hair such that it felt like a breeze was teasing it. Falling out or not, the spirit knew when comfort was needed, and unlike on the trip where she'd been sealed in the necklace he'd stolen save for in the direst conditions, she was actually here to give it this time.

_I told you, little hawk, that he could never hate you for what you did. _

He hadn't believed it, not when she had first said it, and not up to the moment Cloud had revealed all this information. Cid rightfully should hate him, disappearing from the bed they had shared not ten minutes after Cid had gone to sleep, and then stealing from him. No note when he left, no word since then, how could Cid not be furious? The man should be cursing him in five languages with some choice words repeated two or three times per language. He should most definitely not be worried about Nida for his cowardice.

"Cloud, I..."

"I know what it's like to see your world crumble around you, until you don't know what to do but run away and give in. But it doesn't help. Not like friends and companions who care about you can."

"You barely know me."

"Does that really matter?"

Honestly, Nida wasn't sure.

"Listen here, Nida. I don't know what happened between you and Cid, or you and the world, or you and yourself beyond what I was there for. I'm not going to ask either, it doesn't matter anymore. All I'm going to ask you is if you're going to come back with me or not. Running away from your problems will get you no where, and we can't very well look for a way to get you back home when we can barely understand what brought you here. Only you can do that, and only with our resources. So you either come back with me, or you stay here. It's up to you. But you need to decide."

The pilot's eyes rose to meet the transparent, and yet still bright, eyes of Siren. Nothing passed between them but that look, and yet something in it gave the pilot the strength he needed. After a moment Nida nodded and looked towards Cloud.

"Running away will get me no where, and as nice as this place is, it's not where I belong."

Cloud smiled and turned away, already walking in the direction that would bring him to the Fair house.

"Come on then. You have to pack up and explain to the Fairs why you're leaving. And probably never coming back again."

All Nida could really do was rush to catch up with the swordsman.

Cloud could move rather fast when he wanted to.


	12. Chapter 10

Author's Notes: Ouch, almost a year. I'm such a bad writer, neglecting things for so long. There is good news though: this is a new chapter, and I have outlined the rest of the major events of the story. So things should go better from here on out. When I get days off of work, I will try to include new chapters, or at least work on them. Plus, my new martial arts experience (whoot yellow belt) might help make my fight scenes even better. Who knows. But for now, I dedicate this chapter to everyone who has reviewed me so far and supported me. You're all the best.

P.S. - Sorry for how short it is.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 10

Ever since he laid eyes upon the Ragnarok, Nida had known that she was the most marvelous ship in existence. Were time compression to bring all ships from all times together, past, present, and future, it would create the Rag, her hull still the same, down to the specific crimson of her hull. The ship had all the knowledge of the world available from its computers, an observation deck, and even a hanger for smaller fliers and assault vehicles. Her claws were as much weapons as the cannon of her mouth, and the seats were so perfectly comfortable. There was nothing the Ragnarok lacked.

Well, he'd always thought that, but right now the running hot water in the shower of the Sierra was by far superior to anything the Ragnarok had in store. The sheer pleasure of water, slamming against his already reddened body with the force of small pebbles thrown at him, was enough to make Nida sing the glories of the Sierra, almost making him think it was better his Ragnarok. Almost. Still, thirty minutes and skin pink enough to match Quistus's trademark outfit was probably a clear indication that the shower should be drawing to a conclusion.

A few deft motions found the water shut off and a large, fluffy blue towel wrapped around Nida's waist. After a moment of thought Nida grabbed another towel to dry his hair and left the shower room, padding down the hall towards his room. The halls were, expectantly, empty, and for good reason. The ship was in full flight, with crew everywhere but in their rooms or at the showers, something Nida had been told was reserved for when the ship was on the ground at night, or hovering on autopilot. The emptiness was more than welcome for Nida; he had come over the years to hate allowing people to see his body, covered with scars from the war against the vicious Zebalga tribe. People asked questions, and when they didn't they looked on in curiosity. The only exception was among those who had fought in the war, winning their own scars in the process.

The moment Nida returned to his room, a small thing Cloud had shown him to when they had reached the Sierra an hour ago (after an equally long walk from Gongaga), he flopped down on the small bed. The thing was even less comfortable than what was given Garden cadets, but Nida didn't mind too much. All he had to do was reach out and press his fingers against the metal of the wall and he could feel the reassuring hum of an airship in flight. Most people never noticed it, but Nida was well attuned to the feel of an airship, and the heightened sense of hearing from Siren had always provided an undertone of the faint hum of a ship. Nida had gotten good at telling what was wrong with his Ragnarok, or any of the small fliers he taught his students about, by sound and touch alone. So now he retreated into the comforting feelings and sounds, something not too far removed from his own Rag.

_You have a guest, sparrow_, Siren whispered in his head, pulling Nida's attention from the latent hum and forcing it towards the minor change in vibration by the door.

The warning came just as the knock sounded in the room. Part of Nida wanted to reprimand his Guardian for failing to notice sooner, but another knew she was not to blame. The constant hum in the background could easily cloud the sounds Siren was normally attentive for.

"Nida."

The SeeD sat up abruptly, glaring at Reeve, whose head was now peeking through the door without permission. The insult only seemed to pile up more as Reeve entered the room, but it was quickly forgiven when Nida saw the man holding a tray of food, soup from the smell of it.

"We figured you might be hungry, after the hike from Gongaga, and the work Cloud said you were doing when he got there."

"Didn't get a chance to eat since breakfast this morning," Nida admitted, watching the tray as Reeve closed the door behind him and made his way to the bed. "What kind of soup?"

"Beef barley, favored among the crew. It's left over from their lunch, rewarmed, but I suspect it is perfectly edible. Tifa cooked it, so it should be delicious."

Nida took the offered tray, scooting down the bed to give Reeve room to sit. It was obvious from the way that the man was shuffling around that he wanted to talk, so Nida was just going to allow it. After all, one did not bite the hand that fed them, right? Well, unless you were Zell and that hand was holding a hot dog, but that had only happened once. Once the tray, and Reeve, were appropriately settled, Nida began to dig in, well, spoon in, to his food.

"Where did you get that scar on your arm?"

And just like that the pilot's appetite was gone. Nida calmly set the spoon down on the tray, placed the whole thing on top of the small dresser in the room, and grabbed the pair of pants Cloud had brought in just before Nida's shower. In silence the pilot began to dress.

"Bad memories?" Reeve asked, sounding very apologetic.

"That particular one almost killed me."

"And the one by your backbone?"

"Same thing, but that was a bad crash in a flier. Teaching a rookie who was as jumpy as a cactuar when the engine stops. Kid got out without a scratch, I was off my feet for two months."

By this point Nida was completely dressed, sans socks, in hopes of avoiding further questions he'd rather not answer. It was true that every scar came with its own story, but some were worse than others, like his arm. That one was a bright strip of white that stretched across most of the arm, right about shoulder level. He'd been lucky not to die in that battle, from blood loss, from the blades of his two enemies, from sitting on the ground afterwards, cradling the head of his best friend and lover in his lap. In that one scar was all of the things wrong with the war, all the death and blood shed, the repeated times he should have died, only to live because the Zebalgas thought he was something that he was not, a child of some great legendary wise man, the key to the ultimate power of Hyne.

Of any scar on his body, this was the one that hurt the most, even though he couldn't feel the damage anymore.

"May I ask you something, Nida?"

"So long as it isn't about the scars, then feel free. But only one question. I'm feeling tired."

Reeve was silent for a moment, probably because of Nida's allowance of only one question. He could understand how the man would want to ask him more. From what Nida understood, this man was scientist, engineer, and politician all at once, always wanting to know more, do more, help more people. Asking questions, answering questions, maybe even propagating questions, was how this man lived, and here Nida had cut him down to only one in a whole universe of possibilities. Nida was more than aware that he was a curiosity to these people offering him hospitality in their world, and that even with what he'd told them upon their meeting, there was still much they wished to know. A good soldier, though, never gave up everything he knew, even if he had to give up a few crumbs here and there.

"If, in the long run, we are unable to return you to where you come from, what will you do?"

A whole universe of possible questions, and Reeve asked the one that Nida had absolutely no clue about how to respond to. So he responds in the only way he can think of, he says nothing. He closes his eyes, gives into the power of Siren's senses, listening to the hum of the airship around him, feeling the trembling through his feet, feeling the air eddy around him from the ducts in the room.

_You're running away, my sparrow. Is that really the best choice? Remember what it has gotten you recently? _

Nida ignored the almost bitter note of her voice, and deigned not to answer her either. Still, she would press him, and her will often over matched his. Soon he would have to answer the question.

"Reeve, you're wanted up on deck."

The young SeeD could not help but jump before turning to face the door. Sure enough it was ajar, the dark man, Valentine, framed in the steel of the door frame. How the man had managed to make it down the hall and open the door without Reeve's notice was an easy thing to understand, but how he had escaped Siren's notice confused Nida to no end. Still, Reeve was not visibly shaken, and he merely stood and slipped past Vincent, thinking nothing more of the second intrusion into Nida's space, or seemingly into the appearance of this other man.

"How did you..."

"Third door on your right."

Vincent said nothing else before leaving, door still wide open.

For another minute Nida stood there, marveling at the door and the seemingly random words of Vincent. It wasn't until Siren prodded his mind that Nida made his way for the door.

_What do you think he means by that?_

_He means to tell me where Cid is at the moment._

_How can you tell, my sparrow?_

Nida didn't need to respond, he could sense the realization in her as soon as she asked the question. Siren knew, as well as Nida did, that it was the same way that Seifer acted. He never flat out said 'go apologize to such-and-such,' or 'you forgot to do something.' The blond had always been kind enough to hint at it subtly, knowing that only the smallest prodding was all it took to get a man to do what you wanted him to, while allowing him to save face. Nida was sure that Cloud would have done the same thing, if he had been the one to show up at the door rather than Vincent. Cid, though, would have been in here cursing Nida into next Thursday, in no way concerned with belittling him along the way.

In this situation, though, it was going to be Cid cursing Nida into next Thursday for pulling such a stupid stunt like disappearing. Nida was sure of it, yet he still closed the door behind himself and shuffled down the hall, bare foot, to the door Vincent had hinted at. He was almost proud that his hesitation before knocking was only two breaths.

"Who the fuck is it?" Cid's voice demanded from behind the door.

"I'm sorry."

Nida would have been content to leave it at that, even began to turn and leave, only to find Cid must have been waiting at the door for how quickly the thing was thrown open. There stood Cid, looking none the worse for the way Nida had disappeared, and even stepping aside to let Nida past.

"Get the fuck in here, fly boy. You and me got some talkin' to do."

Somewhere in Cid's tone was the hint that disobedience might find Nida thrown off of the ship, but the idea of fleeing was still tempting to the young man. Finally he gave in, slipping meekly past Cid and into a room only half again the size of his own. Apparently Cid wasn't the kind of captain who would take things far better than his crew just because he could. The thought almost made Nida smile, but remembering what sort of tongue lashing he was in for, the smile was quickly quelled.

"Sit," Cid barked as he reentered the room, slamming the door behind him.

"If you don't mind, I'd prefer to..."

"Shut up! Sit your ass down in that chair and drink some goddamn tea, fly boy."

Nida actually jumped a bit at the way Cid shouted, but quickly seated himself in the chair Cid had pointed his lit cigarette at and poured a cup of tea from the pot on the table before him. Again, something told him that disobedience was a BAD idea. He cautiously sipped from his tea, too hesitant to ask for milk or sugar, and watched as Cid slammed the bolt on the door into place before coming over and flopping down into the other chair for his own cup of tea.

"Cid, listen..."

"No," the pilot said, sipping at his tea. "Finish your cup, then I'll talk, not you. Understand?"

Nida merely nodded, quickly downing his cup, despite the way it scalded his tongue.

The older man took note of this, nodded to himself, and set aside his own cup. After clearing his throat the old man began.

"You don't have to apologize to me, Nida."

"Yes, I really do, Cid. I...."

"Shut up! You don't get to talk until I'm done, understand? I don't care if you're a three-star fucking general, or a summon, or Minerva her fucking self. You're going to listen to me, like it or not. We got this clear?"

All Nida could do was nod.

"Good. And don't you zone out on me with your feathered stripper either. Got it?"

_Feathered stripper? _Siren shouted, utterly indignant. _You tell that chain-smoking ant that I've squashed men better than him with a single feather! You tell him that, Nomura. You hear me?_

"You're snickering. What the fuck about this is funny?"

Taking this as an indication that he could respond, Nida choked out his laughter, trying desperately not to laugh and incur the wrath of both the older pilot and his GF.

"Siren doesn't appreciate being called that."

"Well, if she stopped dressing like a stripper, then I wouldn't do it."

_I'll have you know that I was clad like this long before your kind even knew how to create clothing! I am a timeless being of immeasurable power! You will not disrespect me!_

"I'd suggest you move on Cid, before she tries to force me into a summoning, just so she can tell you off on her own."

The older man rolled his eyes and took a draw on his cigarette before nodding to himself. Nida, on the other hand, tried to quiet Siren as quickly as he could so Cid would have his full attention. Right now he didn't want to deal with a new scar source.

"So, this is how it's gonna work, okay? You don't get to apologize for what you did. I understand why you did it, did both of the things you did. You ain't the kinda person to hurt someone for fun, or even on accident. It was instinct, or training, right? I've seen Spike and Vinny get like that, hell, even Reeve does things he can't explain. Soon he's even gonna get me to demand forms be filled out in triplicate, not that I'd know what the hell to do with that much paper. But you, you're a mercenary, right? Said you got this training in lots of stuff, so the way I figure it, you was trained to deal with some things without even thinking, to make it easier. Got this new pilot on my Sierra, kid jumps to attention whenever I'm around. Former military I think, so he's always saluting me, even though I tell him not to. Take me years to break him of it. Sorta like what happened to you, right?"

Since Cid had trailed off, taking another drag of his cigarette, Nida assumed that this time he was meant to respond, and took the chance gladly.

"Something that night, my training, or my instinct, told me to run. I don't know what from, I don't know why, but something told me move, and I did, until I couldn't move anymore and the Fairs took me in."

"Would you have come back?"

Another one of those questions Nida didn't know how to answer.

"I thought so," Cid mumbled around his cigarette.

"Cid, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I know."

With that Cid rose and opened a drawer in his dresser. He pulled from it a notebook and pen, which he proceeded to toss to Nida. Then he returned to the table and poured himself another cup of tea.

"What is this?"

"Shera told me, few years back, I could remember things better, explain them better, if I wrote them down first. Help me clear my mind, deal with stress and some shit like that. Didn't believe a fucking word of it, but I kept the damn shit she gave me. Take it. Work things out. Maybe she's right about it working."

"Maybe it will," Nida agreed, resolving to at least try it. Reports delivered after missions always made him feel like he understood what had happened better.

"Now get out of here."

That comment made Nida's head snap up from the notebook he'd been looking down at. Cid was focused on his tea pot, his face unreadable to the younger pilot.

"Cid, I don't understand."

"I said get out of here. We'll be landing in Rocket Town in a few hours. Someone will get you a place at the inn when we get there."

"Oh. Of course. Thank you for your time, Captain."

Nida held himself together as he made it through the door and closed it behind him. Always be all business until you're out of sight of those who gave orders, first rule of how to make it in Garden. It was only that rule that forced Nida to hold his composure until he had returned to his room. Inside he found Reeve sitting at the end of his bed and Vincent standing in a corner, leaning against the wall. Vincent beat the executive to Nida as SeeD fell forward to his knees, holding him up as Reeve moved to pull the door closed.

"It will be alright," Reeve reassured Nida as Vincent lead the young man to the bed. "Just give it time, and it will be alright. Cid's just a hard man, always has been. He'll forgive you soon enough, I'm sure of it."

Vincent said nothing, and Nida didn't question why neither of them seemed surprised by this situation, or why Reeve's implications seemed to be that he had knowledge of why Nida was so upset.

All he could question at this moment was how he was supposed to handle things now that the last bit of support he'd thought he had, somewhere, had finally given out.

------

The next few hours were a bit of a blur for Nida, mostly due to the shock of his conversation with Cid, but some of it from the rushing around that came with the Sierra landing near Rocket Town. For a time Reeve left Nida in Vincent's care, mumbling something or other about gathering up there things for the lift back to town, but Nida could not be quite sure. What he remembered next was Vincent, using silences almost like Squalls, helping him put back on a composed front as they left the Sierra, Cid not too far ahead of them, and the rest of the war heroes aboard, namely Cloud and Reeve, flowing close behind. Later Nida would be impressed with just how well he'd held up at that point, even though the other four men most likely knew that things were not alright with him, even if the crew of the Sierra didn't. He also remembered the beauty of the Sierra rising and flying off to wherever Cid had it stored when not in use, and mourning the fact that he couldn't use Siren to take comfort from the ship anymore.

After that Nida didn't remember anything, even getting into the bed that he woke up in. The walls were yellow, the bed lumpy, the blanket thrown over him scratchy and inefficient at keeping out what felt like a chilly autumn night. Something, maybe the noise downstairs, told Nida that this was a room at the inn Cid had mentioned. Part of him ached at the idea that he'd really ended up here, but it didn't have long to feel that way, because a quick glance at the rest of the room revealed Vincent, again leaning against a wall. Maintaining composure became the whole of Nida's focus, not that he thought losing it was going to change Vincent's opinion of him. Still, removing himself from the pain was probably the best idea, far better than wondering just why it hurt so much.

"Do you ever actually sit, or lie down?"

Vincent stared at him for a second, blood red eyes piercing easily through Nida's attempts to appear calm. Nida could feel the man looking at him, really looking at him, and something told him that it was what the man saw that caused him to respond.

"Yes, but Reeve asked me to watch over you in case you woke while he was gone."

"How long has he been gone?" A far better question than 'why should I need to you watch over me?'

"Not long. He's getting dinner for us all."

"It's really that late? Have I been sleeping that long?"

"Six hours," Vincent confirmed before heading for the door. Nida was actually disturbed that Vincent had acted before Siren had even warned him, and more so when Siren said nothing as Vincent opened the door for Reeve and the two trays he was carrying.

"Siren?" Nida demanded out loud, almost panicking from the silence in his mind, the emptiness that came with the lack of a junction.

"She manifested faintly about four hours ago," Reeve provided, gesturing with a laden hand towards the end table by Nida, where his mithril necklace rested. "She asked us to remove the necklace, that she would remove her own junction. Apparently she felt that you were drawing upon her, even in your sleep, and it was disturbing you."

Nida nodded silently before snatching up the necklace, putting it on, and calling the familiar presence back into his mind. He was sure he visibly relaxed when he felt her gentle touch in his mind.

_Forgive me, my sweet hawk. In your sleep you were reaching out with me, straining towards him. It did you no good. I had to ask them._

_I understand,_ he grudgingly admitted. _Forgive me if I have done you wrong. _

_No, my dove, you have done me no wrong. Now eat, you are as weak of body after the searching as you are of heart at this time._

Nida did not need to be told twice. He gladly took the food Reeve offered him, soup again, this time with a buttered roll, and ate despite their lack of quality. These he washed down with the cold beer Reeve had kindly provided. Finally, when he finished, Nida set aside the tray Reeve had given him, and slid back on the bed, pressing his back firmly against the wall.

"Thank you very much for your help."

"Think nothing of it," Reeve said, only just starting in on his own food after serving Vincent and watching Nida intently for a few minutes. "You didn't have lunch, so you were bound to be starving by now."

"Not quite. Rule of threes. I still had more than two days before... Oh. I get it."

"Amusing. For someone with so much experience and training, you do miss the intention of the oddest comments."

Nida rolled his eyes at Reeve's comment. When you deal with people like Zell and Selphie, sometimes they began to rub off on you. Then again, he supposed they too had people like that to deal with, namely that excitable girl, Yuffie. Neither of them, though, seemed worse for the contact.

"The two of us," Reeve said around a mouthful of bun, "Will only be here through tomorrow, but the room is charged to my company. Stay as long as you need."

"You're leaving? Already?"

"We have to find you a way home," Vincent responded, though Nida couldn't be sure he was telling the truth or not. Maybe they just didn't want to be around someone like him in the state of mind he was in.

"If you need anything in town, we've told the innkeeper to help you, or at worst to send on to Yuffie or Shera. Yuffie is visiting with Shera, so I do warn you that anything that gets to one of them will get to both. So don't go asking them for any porn or something. Yuffie would more than happily oblige."

Nida pondered Reeve's words, utterly confused by what he meant with that last statement. Luckily Reeve seemed to get this right off the bat and he chuckled, putting his bun aside.

"Really, are you that naïve? The girl has been making eyes at you at least as long as we've been here. If you asked for porn, you might get it in the flesh, so to speak."

Even in the mood he was in, Nida couldn't help but smirk at the pun.

"I'd hate to disappoint her, but I'm not really looking for that sort of thing at the moment."

"Don't say that to her either," Reeve laughed, "She might hold out hope."

"So long as she holds out far away from me."

This comment caused the two of them to laugh, finally breaking the last of the tension lingering in the room, and almost banishing Cid from Nida's mind. In fact, it might have worked completely were it not for the fact that moments later, the door was open, and there was the Captain himself, cigarette free and smelling like a little too much whiskey.

"Cid, what are you doing here?" Reeve demanded at length. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking? Dammit man, have you no sense of at least basic courtesy."

"Stuff your fucking courtesy. I'm taking the fucking flyboy with me."

"And what in on Minerva's green planet makes you think you're going to do that?"

"You fuckin try to stop me, I'll take care of you myself."

Both Nida and Vincent were standing fully upright at this point, their watching of the verbal tennis ending with Cid's threat. Vincent reached Reeve's side, hand on his gun, at about the same time Nida reached Cid's, putting his hand on the older man's shoulder.

"Cid, calm down. Reeve, you too. Okay, everyone just calm down."

"Nida..."

The SeeD shook his head, pushing Cid towards the door. "Not right now. He's drunk. I'll get him home. You two just stay here. I'll be back soon."

Reeve nodded, though he didn't look happy with the idea. It was probably only Vincent's golden claw on his shoulder that kept the man from following Nida.

It took a bit of effort for Nida to navigate Cid down the stairs of the inn without falling, and by the time the pair made it outside, Nida was practically carrying the older man. At last, though, they made it to Cid's house and bedroom. Doors were cautiously shut behind the SeeD with his foot, and the older man navigated around despite his protests by Nida's hands. At long last Nida let go of Cid, letting the old man slump to his bed, grumbling the whole while about 'fucking executives' and 'fucking vampires,' but mostly about 'fucking stupidity.'

"Go to bed Cid. You're just embarrassing yourself like this."

When the man tried to stand again, Nida merely pushed him back down on the bed, and proceeded to undress him. He'd dealt with drunken students in Balamb enough, as well as putting them to bed and leaving behind reprimands, to be able to deal with this professionally. A few quick motions had socks off, and coat tugged away to follow. Pants were quick to follow, but Nida couldn't bring himself to do anything more, not even take away the man's flight goggles. Nida's hands were shaking, everything he'd been suppressing the last ten minutes rushing back in one instant that made his mind scream 'run.'

_No, not yet. He came looking for you for a reason_, Siren whispered, as if even her raised voice would rouse Cid's attention.

The old man had other things in mind though, for as Nida tried to leave, Cid's hand shot out and latched on to his wrist. Before Nida could pull himself free Cid pulled Nida towards the bed, his strength unsurprisingly intact, as it tended to be in the drunk. Nida fell to the bed, only to find himself pinned quickly by the older man, that as surprising as the display of strength had not been.

"Cid, let me go. I have to go back to the inn."

"No," the man slurred. "Stay."

"Cid, don't do this to me. Just let me go back to bed."

"Sleep here."

"Cid..."

"Forgive ya. And sorry," the man mumbled, seconds before falling asleep on top of Nida.


	13. Chapter 11

Author's Notes: I finished relistening to Dragonflight today, and when I was done, something moved in my mind. It shouted to me 'write story where Nida is a belly dancer,' sadly, I could think of no GOOD and PLOTFUL way to get Nida into the gauzy pants, coin laden shawl, and mid-drift revealing tops, complete with noisy bracelets on wrists and ankles, and a nice veil for his face. So, to indulge in the creative muse, I leapt upon the fact that there are, at best guess, three, maybe four (depending on how these guys behave, and if they get horribly sidetracked or not), chapters left to Pilot Wings, and what would it hurt if I wrote one today?

If anyone cares to remember/reread the prologue, you might recognize one of the scenes in this chapter. I hope you enjoy its recurrence, or actual happening. Whatever. Also, do you KNOW how hard it is to write in parts of Nida's past that need to be kept hush-hush for the sake of the story I want to write for my own pleasure? Damn, so much editting.

And if anyone can think of a good plotful way to get Nida into belly dancing, please either write it/draw it/share it. This must happen.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 11

Pinned as he was under the bulk of Cid, Nida did not find himself comfortable enough to drop off into sleep, either mentally or physically. Here he was, after all, his chest slightly crushed by the older man, making breathing a bit of a task to focus on, and this was merely hours after Cid had practically banished Nida, not only from this bed, this house, but from Cid himself. How was Nida supposed to take this sudden reversal from a drunk Cid? Was he to assume that the man had really forgiven him, that the earlier actions had been rash on the part of the old blond? Or did Nida take this as a sign that Cid, mourning a loss they both had to suffer, had given into weakness because of alcohol?Or was this something else entirely? Nida could not be sure, especially since he had never faced a drunken Cid, not in the limited amount of time he had been a house guest of the strange man.

Ten minutes Nida must have laid there before he finally came up with a way to deal with the situation he had been put into. By this time Cid was out cold, not that Nida could be sure that he hadn't been when Cid had first chosen to use him as a pillow. Carefully, as not to awaken the man, Nida slowly began to shift Cid off of him, no easy task even for Nida. While the same height as Squall, who Nida was more than capable of lifting, the pilot was deceptively heavy, almost like dealing with the dead weight of a drunken Seifer, which Nida had encountered on more than one occasion. It took a few minutes, but Nida still managed to, in the end, move Cid's weight enough that Nida could slip from beneath him. With this done, he carefully tucked Cid in, pulling the blankets up around the man, and slipped out of Cid's bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Alone in the hall, the light sound of Cid's breathing barely audible through the door, Nida leaned against a wall, trying beyond all hope to figure out just what was going on. Of course he could come up with little, his mind already running in enough circles since the arrival of Cloud in the fields that afternoon. Afternoon? Had it really been that recently?

_Yes, my dove, _Siren mumbled, sleepily, in the depths of Nida's mind. _It was truly only this morn that you were reunited with the people who promised to help you, who you foolishly fled._

_Even tired you endlessly needle me, Siren. Can't you give me just a few minutes to think in peace?_

The guardian didn't respond, though Nida wasn't sure whether he was happy or not with that, much the same way he felt for this turn of events. Still, the silence was almost enough to give him a chance to deal with this situation. All he would need now, from experience, was some task to keep his hands busy, rather than having them fret with frivolous things, like they were doing now with the hem of the shirt he was wearing. Once his hands were adequately distracted, and Siren quieted, Nida's mind would be free to try and decipher just what was going on, how he was going to deal with the several new turns of events.

Several tasks quickly fell before the frantic energy of Nida's hands: washing dishes; mending the damaged clothes he'd brought from Gongaga; preparing and drinking tea; washing the dishes from tea; and otherwise tidying up around Cid's house. The only thing that Nida managed to discover for himself in that time, though, was the small box in Cid's storage closet, not far from photo album and where the bladed staff had been kept. Within it had lain a set of golden wings, between which was not a bird, but an odd seal, a red enameled square with a white notch at the top, with odd characters that Nida could not read, but seemed a bit like the language he'd seen in some of the smaller city-states back home. These, Nida had known immediately, were Cid's pilot wings, or at least one pair. He'd seen men back home with multiple pairs, given by multiple organizations, nations, and even as awards. Hyne, beyond even the plain gold wings of Quetzalcoatl, Nida had at least three pairs of pilot wings, one of which he'd had custom made to amuse Siren, bearing her wings instead of the traditional ones of the thunderstorm mistress Guardian. Still, upon finding it, Nida had polished the wings, before restoring them to the place Cid had secreted them.

And through all of these tasks, Nida had been unable to well and truly think. By the time he had gotten to the dishes a second time he'd actually reached out tentatively for the comfort of his guardian, only to find her shying away from him, protesting that she was fatigued. When he'd questioned her on such an idea, curious as to whether Guardians were truly able to become fatigued, she'd evaded the question by simply ignoring him and refusing to speak to him. Eventually Nida had given in, no longer prodding at the, as he had recently learned, female that was more than happy to take revenge upon his tender flesh.

So here Nida was, back in the room he'd first awakened into here in Rocket Town, pondering the bed, and whether or not he'd even be able to find sleep with all the worries that wracked his mind. The cream colored walls were more of a depressing gray in the lack of light, making the comparison Nida had once made for the color to that of a hospital even more off putting. It wasn't the curtains that blocked the light from the room though, their flimsy frills probably incapable of blocking even the light of a firefly, but rather the dark clouds that had been gathering over the town hours ago when Nida had arrived in town with Vincent and Reeve, though he hadn't noticed the cloud cover then. He was sure now that there would soon be rain. Nida's inner pilot mentalities flinched at the idea, knowing the hazards of take off or landing in such weather, but his childhood memories were filled with happy days, playing in the rain.

With nothing else to do, no where else to go (imagine rushing out of the inn without taking note of what room he'd been in, or even securing a key from Reeve or Vincent), Nida sat himself on the edge of the bed. It was here he'd first laid eyes on Cid, first come to understand, really understand, that there was no chance that he was going to get home, even if he had refused to admit it. There was even a chance that, somewhere down the line, Nida would live out the rest of his life on this bed, or one like it somewhere else in this world, perpetually removed from everything he knew and desired.

"This isn't what I wanted," he protested to the darkness around himself.

There was no response.

"None of this is what I wanted," he continued, looking down at the hands folded in his lap. "Just wanted to finish that damn mission and go home. Just wanted to wake up in bed beside Kiros, that was easier to explain away. Just wanted the worst problem I had to deal with be trying to explain to Squall about what he'd seen, even though it wasn't needed. That is all. Nothing else."

Still no response.

Nida sighed and let himself fall back onto the bed, arms spread to take up as much of the bed as he could manage. After a moment he realized he could easily fall asleep like this, and knowing how uncomfortable it would be, Nida began to strip. Cid wouldn't begrudge him a single night in the bed, or at least Nida hoped so.

"I, I don't know what I wanted."

"At last you tell the truth."

Instantly Nida was on his feet, the nearest thing at hand coming up as a weapon, instinct screaming to defend himself from the unexpected intruder. Somehow, though, Nida was sure that his sock was not going to scare off any intruders. While it wasn't menacing, Nida was still sure that he could do something with it to defend himself if it came to that. Which, from the look of the person before him, didn't seem unlikely.

"You," he hissed, sock held limply in his hand as Nida contemplated how to kill a person with just a single crew-cut sock.

"Indeed. And you as well. Though you looked better the last time I saw you."

"Last time I saw you, your axe had almost taken my hand off."

"I know, it was marvelous," the man chuckled.

He was an imposing figure, as menacing unarmed as Nida was hoping to achieve, and failing to, with the sock in hand. The man was almost six feet tall, and built as sturdily as Raijin had always been. Despite the scars on his forearms the old man, probably pushing sixty with his short cropped, white streaked, black hair, looked more fit now than the last time Nida had seen him, something he would not think of now, or ever again.

"Hyne take you, Boyce."

"He already had, Nomura, to this wonderful world. The magic of Hyne is here, it flows up from the very ground, is in stones and beasts as much as the people. This is the glory we sought, Nomura. Join me, you have this last chance. None here will be able to stand against us."

"If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times..."

"Thirty-seven and a half," the old man corrected.

"...I will never work with you, Boyce Megill. But I will gladly give you death."

The Trabian weapons master laughed, that sick laugh that haunted the worst of Nida's dreams, and for the first time Nida noticed the great axe in the man's hands, the same as almost took Nida's hand and life, in the end of it all.

"I was sadly certain you'd say this, blood of my blood."

"I am not your kin!" Nida shouted, flinging himself at Boyce, prepared to kill him, or die trying. Nida was sure, almost sure, determined at the very least, to do the man in for once and for all. No longer would the man torment him, the Gardens, or any worlds in his insane quest. No longer would Nida be unsure as to if things were done, there would be closure, even as he wrung it from the old man, sock wrapped tightly around the thick neck, stretching the fabric to its limits.

The body began to go limp, the axe falling from Boyce's hands, the sharp blade lodging in the wood of the floor. Nida would apologize to Cid for that, and the body, in the morning, after he had his first night of real sleep, free of fear of this man, since the end of the war. Finally, Boyce Megill would be dead.

Except he wouldn't. The one choking wasn't Boyce, it was Nida, with the large man's arm wrapped around Nida's throat, pulling him slowly backwards to remove him from his balance. It wasn't the axe that had struck the floor, but one of Nida's arms, cut off as he had scrabbled against the constricting arm. He'd forgotten how easily the man had handled the monstrous weapon with but a single hand, and he quickly forgot again in his panic and in the sheer pain from the loss of his arm.

Still Boyce was pulling him back, stealing what little balance and potential leverage Nida could achieve, which was never for long, with his bare feet slipping too often in his own blood. Soon Nida was no longer struggling, and he couldn't help but wonder, in an oddly peaceful way, which would kill him: Boyce's strangulation, or the blood-loss from his arm.

"Nida!" a voice shouted, and just before he blacked out, Nida glance over, what little strength he had failing as he saw Cid there, awake and in his doorway. Boyce had pulled Nida out of the guest room and into the hall, where Cid had easily found them from the noise, despite his alcohol induced sleep.

'Run,' Nida tried to mouth to Cid, but his lips wouldn't obey him, and already his eyes were closing, closing. Closed.

Open. Open and searching the dark for Boyce as Nida's lips clamped down tight to hold back the scream he longed to release. No Boyce. Left hand flew to right, making sure before eyes could discern that there was no damage. Arm intact, breathing normal except for the panting from the terror that had consumed him but seconds ago. Nida sat up and began to rub his eyes, to be sure that there really was nothing here to disturb him, that there was no sign of Boyce.

The room was empty except for Nida, untouched except for shoes and socks on the floor, stripped off before Nida had fallen into troubled sleep, not even properly stretched out on the bed. Still, he rose and began to search the house, looking everywhere in Cid's small home, a spear from the hall in hand for protection. No sign of hide nor hair of Boyce. Finally Nida returned to the bed, set the spear close at hand, and assured himself it was all a dream. Boyce was dead, he had to be, and there was no way he could be here, in Cid's world. No way at all. He was safe.

Still, Nida had to keep repeating this, over and over and over, as he finished stripping down to go to bed, spear never more than a foot away from his hand. Boyce was dead, gone, never to be seen again. At last he stretched out on the bed, assuring himself that sleep would be far easier to achieve this time, though he longed for the dreamless abyss of sleep magic cast upon himself.

He awoke in the middle of the first floor lobby of Balamb Garden. All around him there were signs of neglect, like the last time he had seen this place. The waters were stagnant, plants withered and dead, even the stones of the path cracked in places where it still stood on the concrete at all. This, Nida knew, was a dream, but that didn't make it any easier to escape. This was a dream he'd had an untold number of times, during both wars, and after. Never had it come to pass, but still he dreamt of it, of standing here, walking the paths of Garden to see only ruin.

There was no point of him wandering now, to see the way beds were broken in student rooms, broken glass in the infirmary, the charred remains of the library. All of it had been imprinted into his mind multiple times, and nothing compelled Nida to seek them out again. That almost worried him more than the dream itself. Sometimes he was aware in these dreams, but he was still compelled to some place, some sight, some horror or other. Other times he was unaware that he dreamt, and he made the tour of the whole of the damage, and woke weeping. The fact that he had no urge to go anywhere, see anything, made this dream far worse than the others, because all Nida could do was sit upon a cracked and crumbling bench, and mourn the place, the scenes, the losses that even now he no longer had to look upon to see.

"So this is where you are."

Nida quickly looked up, his eyes meeting the knowing brown of Ellone's. Instantly he was on his feet, hugging the petite woman. This was one thing he'd never seen in his dreams, a person that looked upon him with kindness, who treated him kindly, even if only with a few words.

"Ellone, Hyne am I glad to see you."

"And I you, Nomura," she said, though her voice had taken a serious note. "And I you. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to achieve this, but..."

Nida nodded in understanding. There had been more than one set of experiments since the end of the Sorceress War. Ellone had set out to determine the true extent of her power after the war, when she had deemed them 'fully matured.' One of the things she had discovered was the ability to walk into the dreams of others, though it always proved a bit of a strain upon her powers. No one asked her to do this unless things were dire. Either this was part of Nida's natural dream, he decided, or they had finally noticed he was missing long enough to plead with Ellone.

"I didn't know if you'd be able to reach me, if you'd even try."

"I do not understand why you say that, but it was, is, more draining this time than any time in the past. And this is not the sort of dream I enjoy being received within."

Nida looked at their surroundings and sighed. It was understandable that Ellone did not like the image presented here, but Nida could do nothing to change it.

"It is a nightmare you've wandered into, Ellone. One that plagues me constantly."

Ellone nodded in acknowledgment, though he had probably already known this fact. It wasn't hard to draw the idea that this was a bad dream from someone who loved Garden so much.

"Listen, Nida, I've come to ask where you are."

"I..." Nida looked to his feet, and Ellone moved to join him on the bench. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he once more looked at her. "I can't even begin to explain it, Ellone. Something went horribly wrong. Odine's machine..."

"Squall is contemplating using it again and sending in a tracking device, or something like that, better to pinpoint you. He wants me to apologize for what happened to you, though he doesn't say so. But just wait, we'll find you, okay? Just tell us about where you are."

"That is the problem, Ellone. It is no where you can get to. Not without becoming as lost as I have been these last several months."

"Months?" Ellone asked, her head tilting to the side has Nida knew it did when she was truly puzzled. "The accident only happened yesterday."

"No," Nida hissed. "No, it's been months. Months. I know it, I've been here for months, at the very least. Came in spring, and it's fall now. It's been months, Ellone. Months!"

"Nida, Nida calm down. If you keep up like this..."

"Months Ellone, months! Don't you get it? No, how can you. You're just another nightmare, sent to plague me, taunt me about how I can never go home. Well I reject it, reject you and this wild dream. Do you hear me? I...

"REJECT IT!" Nida shouted, now panting as he sat up in the bed. Before he realized it, he was in tears, and there was a hand at his shoulder.

"Nida," Cid said, his voice barely a whisper, though there was a grimace on his face, presumably from the fact that Nida had just shout into it, and Cid probably had a killer headache already. "Nida, calm down, it was just a dream."

"I know," he said after a minute. "That is the problem. It was only a dream."

Then he was pulled into Cid's arms, held tightly to the man, who said nothing at all, merely allowed Nida the time he needed. Nida's arms came to wrap tightly around Cid as well, thankful for the minor peace there was to be in the arms of the man he still didn't understand the motivations of. When he finally calmed down, Cid had left the room to make tea, which was brought back along with a chair, and Cid sat as he watched Nida drinking.

"Talk?"

Nida shook his head. "I don't even want to think about it, to be honest."

There was a lot today that he really didn't want to think about. Part of him thought about the battered leather journal, diary, notebook, whatever, that Cid had given him earlier, but Nida shook the idea off and had some of the tea. In silence the two had their tea, Cid gathering the cups up when they were done and whisking them off to the kitchen. By the time the man had returned, Nida had fully dressed, and was frowning thoughtfully at the bed.

"And where the fuck do you think you're going?" Cid demanded.

"Back to the inn. I was only going to take a nap here and slip out in the morning anyway."

"No fucking chance you're going there. What the hell do you think I brought you back for? To watch you run off in the middle of the Goddamn night?"

"You were drunk, Cid."

The older man rolled his eyes. "Doesn't mean I'm fucking stupid. Now get your ass back in bed, and I'll cast sleep on you, so you can get some damn sleep."

"Cid..."

"And don't you question me! I know what I said today. It was stupid, fucking stupid. Changed my mind. I'm allowed to do that, right? So get the fuck over that. Nothing good comes from fucking lingering, trust me on that!"

When Nida didn't say anything, even dared to look away, Cid grabbed the younger man by the shoulders and shook him. Instinct, the same thing that had made Nida run in the first place, made Nida's body move for him, grabbing Cid's right wrist and, after ducking and twisting out of the shake, pulled Cid's arm up behind his back, close to enough to break it, or at least seriously hurt. Quickly nida let go, stepping back in shock. He hadn't meant to do that.

"Cid, I'm sorry... I didn't mean..."

"I know. Same as the running. Couldn't help it, right? I told you, they all do that. We all do that. To protect ourselves. Like what I did today. I did that to Shera once, for years. She stuck around though, I didn't deserve that. And I don't deserve your understanding, but dammit..."

Nida looked away from Cid, understanding to some degree.

"You didn't know if you would come back," Cid said at length, and Nida suddenly knew it had been this recent admission on his own part that had caused Cid to treat him the way he had.

"I'm sorry."

"I know. But you're back. So get to fucking sleep, okay?"

-------

By the time late October had rolled around, Nida had settled into an easy lifestyle in Rocket Town. Days were filled with helping Cid on his ladies, especially the Tiny Bronco, nights were filled with time talking about everything and anything but a few things Nida put off limits. There were also, of course, things that were done to assist the WRO, Reeve's organization determined to help the world in whatever means possible, as well as the people of the world who would call on their old heroes of AVALANCHE. One trip had taken Nida to an area called the Northern Crater to deal with the yearly culling of populations of dark dragons and king behemoths, which were a menace to a city called Icicle Village.

It had only taken two weeks after Nida's return to Rocket Town for things to settle down between him and Cid again, and for the old blond to coax Nida back into Cid's bedroom. Life was an easier thing now, and Nida really was coming to enjoy the time here, even though he grew more and more sure every day that he would be soon forced to give up any hopes he had for returning home.

Every night, though, there were nightmares. Dreams of Boyce and his own death, dreams of danger to Cid, dreams of being lost in Garden, and Ellone reaching out on rare occasions, as false as any other dream he had. And sometimes Nida dreamt of a young woman with brown hair, her eyes green and gentle as a spring morning. She would smile, hold his hand, and assure him that everything would be okay. When he awoke, there was always the after-image in a mint green dress.

But all of that was inconsequential right now, Nida thought, as he sat out under an oak tree near a house across the path from Cid's. In his lap laid the black leather diary Cid had given him more than a month ago, when Cid had proclaimed that Nida needed to write his thoughts down to deal with them. At long last Nida was taking the man's advice to heart, but he couldn't figure out what he was going to write. Should he mention about the time here in Rocket Town, and Cid's world? Should he write all the questions running through his mind? Should he keep a daily diary?

_Just write what comes to mind, my hawk,_ Siren suggested. Easier said than done.

_I've been avoiding this because nothing ever really comes to mind when I'm supposed to write things, except writing them in a mission report format. And I don't think that will help me. It didn't after the war._

_Oh, just suck it up and write,_ the woman said, and then her presence was gone. Her patience was testy at best these days, and Nida assumed it might be because she was so far removed from her natural element. She had often asked Nida in these past weeks to take her into the Nibel Mountains, to the mako pool where she said she felt home. Afraid that letting her spend to much time there might result in his losing of the only thing he still had of home, beyond his uniform, Nida had been resisting the wishes of the Guardian, but he didn't think he'd be able to hold out against her for much longer.

"Okay then," Nida said out loud, "I'll start."

Nothing came to him.

Things continued like this, Nida deciding he knew what he would write, and then not finding a way to do so, until long after the only light in the area came from nearby windows, and the particularly strong light of November's hunter's moon. It was under that light that Nida finally began to write, the pen scribbling quickly across the pages.

_Home, they say, is where the heart is_... Nida began, and soon all of his attention was on the movement of the pen, and the words suddenly flowing out of him. So focused was he that he didn't hear it at first when Cid started shouting for him. It wasn't until the man was no more than three feet away that Nida finally caught the sound of Cid's bellowing for him.

"Where the GODDAMN hell have you gotten to, you fuckin' flyboy?!"

Nida shivered when he heard this, and he looked up at the old man, his pen coming to a halt. He couldn't help but chuckle as he watched Cid standing there, obvious despite the fact that he was almost framed in the light of his house, the tell-tale sign being the red light of his lit cigarette.

"I'm over here."

Cid turned to look at Nida, a frown forming around his cigarette, the red light barely making Cid's other features visible to Nida, despite the fact that he was otherwise a silhouette. Yet, despite the frown, Nida could see the bright twinkle of happiness, and maybe a bit of relief, in those blue eyes. Even now Cid seemed to perk up when he saw Nida, as if he was constantly worried that the young man would flee again. Nothing that the younger man did would ever free him from that minor shadow of doubt of Cid's, but Nida was willing to accept it.

"Hurry your lazy ass up, or I'll tell Shera to give your food to the dog."

Nida nodded, and rolled his eyes once Cid turned to return to the house. 'Dog' was the way that Cid was referring to Yuffie, his house guest for the week, at the moment. Honestly, Nida didn't blame him, not with how the girl hounded him about the relationship between the two pilots. With a smile Nida jotted down a few more lines in his notebook before leaving it, and the pen, outside. There wasn't going to be any rain today, and Cid really would give food the bottomless pit that was the Princess of Wutai.

_You know what, Siren? _Nida said, reaching out to his guardian.

_What, my dear sparrow?_

_I think, right now, I might not miss home that much if I never went back. Life here with Cid and them... It feels right._

Siren didn't respond. Both knew she didn't have to, and her opinion of the whole thing. She had insisted, ever since Nida's dreams had grown more and more troubling, more and more horrible to the point where he slept now under the effects of spells rather than naturally, that remaining in this place was something they were not meant to do. 'Terrible things will come,' she had warned Nida. Many times he had told her that she worried to much, that there was no harm that could come from remaining here, that he could finally have the kind of peace that was never possible back in the life of a Rank A SeeD, in the roles he had to play back home. No one to mention the Zebalga, or Vascaroon, or anything else. The only pressures here was to take care of himself, and be happy.

Was there really something wrong to wanting to live like that?

_Yes_.

Nida ignored Siren and went to join Cid for dinner.

-------

_You see how I try to warn him._

_I see, and I understand his reservation, even if you do not._

_Do not suggest that I do not understand it. I was at his side during the worst of it, I also lived the horrible memories that plagued him. _

_You understand some, but only as much as he truly understands himself. There are parts of him that do not know, do not even begin to understand, sweet daughter of the transient world. Those parts you cannot touch, nor can the one I send to comfort him, to pull him from the horrors his mind subjects him to. She tries, and she worries, but she cannot warn him. He no longer believes in his dreams. He believes in himself, and in you._

_And I try. But there is little I can do if no one here can find a way to take us back. Warnings can only do so much if there is no way in which my sparrow can act._

_There will be a way. I will make sure of it. When the time comes, help him to make the right choice. He will need your strength to face what must be faced in these upcoming days. I cannot, I fear, make things any easier for him. He is not of my kind, I have little power over him._

_Not that I have much more over him._

_This is true, but there is much that rides upon him doing what he must do, for me and for the one he is of. Now, go and rest, transient one. I shall speak with him soon, in my own way. But you must be ready to help him when the time comes. _

_When will the time come? And I ask that you do not give me one of those 'you will know it when it arrives' things either. Diablos does that, and I hate it..._

There was no answer, and somehow that worried Siren more than she was sure any answer could have.


	14. Chapter 12

Author's Notes: Apparently, according to stats, I have far more people following this story than I thought. So, this chapter goes out to all you quiet people out there. That cheered me up. Especially those of you outside of the US (hi canada, uk, spain, greece).

I warn that this chapter is faster than normal ones, and that it's shorter than I intended (and still a longer chapter), but a mood came upon me that screamed 'get it down and get it down now.' I think the first 3000 words came out in around an hour and a half.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 12

They were innocent once, he remembered that more than anything else these days. It was a long time ago, but there was a time when the only blood on their blades were that of monsters, not of young men, old women, not of best friends and lovers. Not of old allies, of people you thought you could trust more than anything else.

They weren't innocent anymore.

They could never be innocent again. Never.

He could see that now.

He could also see that he was on the edge of panic, here holding the dead body close to him, glaring up at another man, Boyce. Ah, but on the edge of panic there is that moment of clarity, Nida had discovered, and that clarity was more likely to break you than the panic itself.

_I don't have a chance_ is what the clarity said, resounding in his head with more force, more certainty than anything Siren had ever told him. _I could barely stand now if I wanted to, and there is still work to be done._

_I can't take it. _

And there is blood everywhere. Blood on Nida's hands from the man in his lap. Blood on Nida's weapons from the same, not to mention the pool of spreading blood they lie in. Even blood staining his clothes, some of the man, some of his own, slowly his own life bleeding from him with each highly accelerated beat of his over strained heart.

_There was a moment, but it's gone. I can't do it anymore. Only a miracle..._

Problem was that Nida had never believed in miracles, and he wasn't about to start it right now. His magic was sealed in this place, so he couldn't heal, he couldn't bring his own victim back from the edge, though he was probably well over it right now.

"Give it up."

Boyce, always there, right on the edge of the conscious clarity before panic.

"I... I..."

A hand held out, halfway across the grand room. The man is radiant there, standing in pure white upon the black marble stairs. Nothing like the blood red of the man in Nida's arms, or the black of Nida's uniform. An angel holding out his hand, offering Nida everything he had never had before, would never have a chance at again. Power, glory, recognition, and most of all, life. Tempting, so tempting.

_Do it. He can save me. All he wants is what I am._

The body laid aside, and Nida is struggling to his feet, weapons left behind as he staggers towards the vision of white and black so deep that even his own uniform seems bright in contrast. And still there is blood on his hands, no matter how much further he steps. Clarity is slipping quickly into flat out panic, and panic made you do foolish things.

"Come. Take my hand. I will take you to where you belong, far away from these lesser beings. You will be among us once more, as you were always meant to be. Together we will find Hyne and take what is ours. Vascaroon will join once more with Zebalga, and there will be eternity."

And the words made so much sense, so much sense, so much _sense_. He'd been living in ignorance these years of his life in Garden. How could he have not seen it before now? All he had to do was take the hand and his destiny would unfold before him. He was the bridge between mortal and immortal, all he had to do was put his mind to it and open himself up to the voice that had always been there, somewhere in the back, somewhere waiting for him to submit to the will of Hyne.

Ten feet. Five feet. Three feet. A foot. Still the hand waits. This is the only way he can survive. He must take the hand, he must be what he was born to be.

"Come, son of Vascaroon. Be our prophet, our guide. We will be your guardians, and wipe the world clean that you might serve us with your infinite knowledge."

Infinite knowledge, he liked the sound of that. Yes, he could see it now. A palace, somewhere, but also a shrine, and a grave, all at once. And within it...

And then Boyce is recoiling, hand moving to the monstrous axe. Nida doesn't understand. He's ready, ready to be what he is meant to be. Why is Boyce pulling away? Nida doesn't have much time left if Boyce does not help him now.

Then he understands it, just as the axe is being swept up to the level of his head.

_I spit in it. His hand, I spit in it._

His choice was made for him. Betrayed by his own dying body.

Luckily it betrays him twice, the last of his panicked energy failing him, and he falls, barely missing the sharpened axe head that would have easily taken his own head from its shoulders.

What now?

Nida had no more energy or ability to fight now than he had just a little bit ago, and now he was separated from his weapons to.

What now?

And the blade is being redirected, momentum finding the surprisingly nimble old man twisting around to bring the blade down at his skull.

_What now?_

And then, suddenly the feeling of floating, his body light and peaceful in a river of green. The words 'not here, not yet' pass through his mind, swept in and out by the river of green. He feels as if there was more, so much more, then nothing.

This was the first morning, Nida realized as his eyes fluttered open, freed from the river of black, in a long time that he'd awoken not because of a nightmare, but because he was genuinely well rested... or something like that. At least it was the first morning he awoke relaxed, feeling oddly comforted by a dream that had fully floated away long before he'd even awoken, even though the nightmare, memory, was still there with him. It was horrifyingly vivid, and yet Nida wasn't bothered by it right now.

A hand moves from the task of holding him up, just barely off of the bed, and pauses to rub at the bridge of his nose. It's early, he can tell that just by the amount of light, and the strength of it, peeking around the edges of the curtains in Cid's room. Cid isn't awake yet, which isn't surprising, because that man could honestly sleep through anything at all if it wasn't something he absolutely had to be up for. The previous night had been long as well, Cid trying his level best to make Nida far too physically fatigued for his mind to invoke the horrors so often visited upon him. Nida chose not to awaken his companion as he slipped from the bed, pulling on boxers he found discarded on the floor and ignoring the slight twinge of pain in his lower back.

Today was going to be one of those lazy days, Nida could feel it in his bones. He'd have plenty of time to get in some morning practice, shower, change, and start breakfast before Cid would awaken, and even that would be only because of the smell of bacon. Cid would rise, shuffle into the kitchen, grab a cup of tea Nida had prepared from the counter, and wrap an arm around his waist as he peeked around the younger man to see what was cooking. Nida would smile, accept a kiss that tasted of tea, sugar, and the cigarette Cid would have had first thing in the morning while still in bed, and tell the old pilot to sit down if he wanted to eat. Then Cid would swear affectionately and obey.

Nida got as far as the shower part when the phone rang.

"Highwind's asleep," Nida said into the phone as a greeting. No one ever called for him after all.

"Ah, good, Nida," the man, Reeve most likely from the tone of voice, "just the man I was looking for." He barged right on ahead, not letting Nida get a word in edgewise, as if completely ignoring the fact that there was even anything other than an answering machine on the other end.

"It's Reeve Tuesti. I've got some exciting, and promising news. It would be best if you heard it here though, so we can act quickly if it is decided that it is prudent. Cid should bring you tomorrow morning. Bring your things as well, I think this one might work. Oh, Mideel by the way, that is where I want him to bring you. Mako is the answer. I should have seen it before. Mako! Thank you. Have a nice day."

And then there was no more Reeve on the other end. Nida actually stood there for a good minute and a half, as if he expected for Reeve's voice to return to explain, or at least continue something that sounded more like a conversation rather than a pre-recorded and highly practiced speech.

Then there were arms around his waist and the scent of recently smoked cigarettes. Cid's rough beard on Nida's bare back, and his equally rough hands making their way down Nida's equally bare body, dangerously close to the barely held up towel at his waist.

"Who the fuck was that?"

Finally Nida was shaken from his stupor.

"Reeve."

Okay, so maybe it isn't fully shaken yet, because his mind is still racing with the speech from Reeve, repeated on a loop both wonderful and horrible, making him both fearful and hopeful, longing and aversion. And still the words circle and circle and circle.

He's almost on the edge of a panic, he realizes. And there, there is the clarity.

He's been in this clarity before, with Boyce's hand held out to him, the most wonderfully terrible offer in the world placed before him: live forever, or die now. And that memory, his very worst moment in a whole war of bad moments, finds him shaking. First it is just the slightest tremor in the hand holding the receiver as he tries to put it back on the cradle. Then it's up the whole of his arm, down his back and straight to his legs. The shaking is out of control. The phone dropped.

"Nida!"

All he can think is that he must have given in, back then, there on those stairs. Because he couldn't remember how it ended, could barely remember how it had started. He remembered the offer, and the hand, and the blood, Hyne the blood. Now his eyes closed and he could see it all over again, the blood on his hands and the body in his lap. He was still alive, right here and right now, wasn't he? Or was he still in the dark hall, looking down on the body with the stairs before him, the offer pending, and the temptation so great? Either he was so close to the choice, or he'd already made it, and made it for the worse. Nida wasn't sure which it was, because his eyes were open again, and he could see both the body in his arms, and the battered little table Cid kept the phone on. Both the blood on his uniform, and the towel around his waist.

Cid's arms and the blood.

"Nida!" Cid shouts again, except it's not again, not just yet. Because he's not at the phone stand anymore, he's laid out on the bed he'd been in, though still in the towel, and Cid was beside him, his hand raised and red.

There was a stinging in Nida's cheek, and his mind hazily connected this with the fact that Cid's hand was red. The connection occurred just soon enough for Nida to raise his arm and deflect the next blow, leaving a look of sheer relief in Cid's eyes.

"Thank Minerva. I thought..."

"Let me up," Nida insisted, as Cid was hovering over him.

"Not until the doctor has had a look at you."

"I don't need a doctor," Nida insisted.

"It's been almost an hour since you passed out at the phone stand."

That took all the will out of Nida for standing up. An hour? It felt like less than seconds. But he could remember the blood and Cid's arms.

"No, don't you go zoning out on me again," Cid hissed, slapping Nida across the face again.

"Cid!" Nida practically hollered, grabbing Cid's arm and pulling him down closer. "Stop that! I'm not zoning out."

"You fucking were. Same look in your eyes, and your eyes were going all wide, like you were focusing through the fucking roof or something!"

Okay, so maybe he had been zoning out. Slowly Nida pushed Cid away from him, and despite the man's protests he began to sit up in the bed. He kept Cid call all throughout the knocking on the front door, the entrance of the town doctor, and the quick examination as well as questions. Nida easily passed through the questions about drugs and alcohol, denied any awareness of heart problems in himself or his unknown family, said he'd had no recent head injuries, wasn't weak around the sight of blood, nor had there been blood, but had to grudgingly admit to the minor sleep deprivation. Memory loss Nida just shrugged at. There were times in his day that he easily could miss and never know it, such as his morning warm ups. His body was so used to them that he could easily go through it without noticing, and still think he remembered it because his pattern was so normal and complete, and he'd be able to tell from the ache in his body.

Finally the doctor left and Nida was faced with a worried Cid and a look that said 'you didn't tell him every fucking thing.'

"Before... I was dreaming before I woke up. Except when you were there, I was seeing the same dream while awake, and I wasn't sure if it was real or not. I lost my grasp on reality for a few moments. I... don't know. I'm almost worried that if I close my eyes again, for anything longer than a blink, it's going to happen again. I feel like I'm losing it Cid. Or maybe I already have."

Then he felt himself taken into Cid's arms, held tight and close. Nida rested his head on Cid's shoulder and tried not to think about the fact that he just wasn't sure right now. Not about anything. And he was too afraid to even seek out Siren's pendant that he could have her comforting mental touch. For all he knew having her there would send him into the waking dream, or reality, once again. Or that he wouldn't find her at his summon, and only prove that what he had seen was reality.

So he stayed there, silent for a long time. Eventually Cid released him, fetched clothes for Nida from the dresser, and went to finish breakfast. Breakfast followed in a reasonable measure of time considering Cid wasn't the sort to cook breakfast that was anything other than bacon often, and Nida was the sort of man for eggs with his bacon. They ate together in bed, Nida's back against the wall and his tray placed between him and Cid so that, if he did have whatever kind of attack that was again, at least he wouldn't go into the food.

It was almost noon before Nida started to talk, and once he started nothing could stop him. Still, part of him kept most of the truth from Cid, though he offered far more details about the recent war than he had given at the meeting with AVALANCHE. Nida spoke of Boyce, the Zebalga, and the Legend of Vascaroon. He spoke of Hyne and the aim of the Zebalga tribe. And he spoke of the man who had died in his arms.

He didn't tell Cid about the offer from Boyce or why it had been extended.

He didn't tell Cid his true role in the war, or what he had thought was his role.

And he didn't tell Cid that the man who had died had been Nida's lover.

Or that he'd lost his life on the tip edge of a halberd, Nida's.

And when he'd unloaded all that he was willing to part with he sighed and told Cid about the dream from the night before, not pointing out it was a memory, and it's resurgence after Reeve's phone call. He left out the panic he was feeling even now, and tried to keep his breathing even.

"I see," Cid said at length, though he obviously didn't, not fully. The man lit a cigarette, his first since Nida began his telling, and took a long draw. "I see."

"Well, I don't know about this mako shit Reeve was spewing, and nothing about not knowing what is real or not, but damned if I'm not going to call Reeve about this. I don't know what he's up to, but he has to know you can't handle a trip to Mideel in a condition like this. And you sure as hell can't handle Mako like this. Bet you're one of those hyper sensitive types, like Cloud. Single fucking drop and you'd start to lose it. Any real amount and you'd be poisoned like you'd never know."

Nida couldn't make heads or tails of what Cid meant by this, but he allowed that to pass, and waited there, sitting up against the wall, for Cid's return.

Snippets of the conversation floated in to the bedroom every now and then. And by 'snippets' Nida would have meant almost a full fifty-percent of the conversation for the way Cid was shouting and apparently parroting back Reeve's words.

"...make it."

"...ssed ou..."

"... mean out cold."

"How the fuck did you know about that?"

"What do you mean? What is fucking happening already? The fucking hell are you talking about Tuesti?"

"Spacial what? Temporal the fuck?"

"Now you listen here, I'm not fucking bringing..."

And then, for a time there was silence save for the word 'oh'. Well, not quite silence. Nida could tell that there was still a conversation going on, but it was almost as if Cid was actually minding his volume now. That was far more worrying to Nida than the few things that he was making out from Cid's shouting. Finally there was one last shout and the sound of a receiver being slammed back into place.

"Tomorrow!" Cid roared, and then the bang.

Then Cid was back at Nida's side, holding him and telling him that they'd be off for Mideel once the sun came up in the morning, and promising to keep him comfortable. Just relax, he said, and I'll take care of you.

It was this that worried Nida most of all. He wanted to scream and riot. He wasn't that fragile, he didn't need a fucking nanny.

Except he didn't have the energy to do it anymore. An odd feeling had settled over the whole of the house.

There were three more 'attacks' that day, each with a seemingly random trigger, and each of the memories, though all haunting and horribly bloody, lasting for different amounts of time. The only thing that was regular was how long it took him to 'awaken' from each, a steady lessening of time between the black out and the awakening. An hour for the first, fifty minutes for the second, thirty for the third, twenty-seven for the next.

Cid grew more and more worried throughout the day, and Nida could sympathize. In fact, the worry and rushing around the house put the old man asleep long before Nida decided that all the tossing and turning didn't mean he really wanted to go back to those dreams. Something told him that if he went to sleep again, he might not actually wake from those memories. Maybe they would suddenly be real, and he'd make the wrong choice.

With the decision made that he could no longer attempt to sleep, Nida slipped from the bedroom where he'd spent most of the day under the watchful gaze of Cid, first fetching the black leather diary he'd been writing in for almost two months now, well before the winter had truly set in here in Rocket Town. He'd made his way through all of the important parts of being a SeeD, and of the Sorceress War, but he'd never written anything about...

Nida shook his head and laid the book on the kitchen table, seating himself to write.

This time he wrote the full truth of what he had been telling Cid that morning, and every word was more damning than the last. Finally, in sheer disgust, Nida threw the pen away from himself and rose from the table. What a coward he was, a weak man of a weak and foolish line. He knew his blood line, even if he had never known his parents, and it sickened him. Nida couldn't even bear to bring himself to write it.

So, to battle the urge to sleep, Nida explored. Not that there was much left of Cid's house that he didn't know at this point. In fact, Nida was certain he knew it all from his almost year in this world, but he still looked. Through photo albums he flipped, through piles of junk he sifted. For hours he passed his time like this. And dawn was swiftly approaching.

Before he turned off the light in the junk filled room, Nida returned to the bedroom and fetched something from among his possessions. He returned to the messy room and reached out for the often considered jewelry box and carefully opened it for what, somehow, felt like the final time. The way that Cid's pilot wings caught the light from the uncovered light bulb above his head was beautiful. Nida's fingers brushed over the golden eagle and the red and white square on its corner that he'd been told was the logo for Shin-Ra. Apparently these wings had been made just before the failed attempt at space flight. Cid had never worn them since that attempt.

Nida reached into the pocket of the pajama pants he'd been using since changing from the towel, and his fingers brushed the metal in his own pocket. A gold and steel Quetzalcoatl with a beautifully Balamb Garden logo upon its breast made of ivory, ebony, silver, and pieces of adamantine. Pilot wings worn for his own first flight in space, but not the most recent, longest, or most important. Just for his first time free of the atmosphere. Nida fished the beautiful piece of metal from his pocket, admired the glowing blue of the adamantine in the logo. This was the most beautiful piece of metal he'd seen on his world, save the Lionheart and the Ragnarok.

For another few minutes Nida looked at the two sets of wings before finally closing the box, slipping the metal in hand into his pocket and returning to the kitchen, and to the notebook.

He pondered it for a few moments before jotting one last note to Cid in the back and writing in big, block letters, on the bottom of the last page about the recent war: I am of Zebalga bloodlines.

Then he heard Cid stirring in the bedroom, and Nida closed the book. There wouldn't be time for breakfast today.

-------

By the time they landed outside of Mideel that next morning, just as dawn was happening there, Nida had had at least four more recurrences of the odd state of unsureness, of memory and reality all at once, or maybe reality and delusion. He couldn't be sure any more. The black outs were getting shorter and shorter, until the final one found him slipping seamlessly from the final moment of panic as Boyce's blade swing down at him back into the probable reality of walking the halls of the airship.

This, Nida noted was a good thing, as Cid didn't notice the slips anymore, allowing Nida to walk the distance from the landing site to the tropical city all on his own, and allowing the blond pilot more comfort than Nida's state had previously afforded him. The old pilot thought Nida was better, and Nida couldn't bear to tell him the truth. The sun had finally made it completely above the horizon when they entered the city, only to find Reeve, Vincent, Cloud, and Nanaki there, all watching Nida horribly closely. Had he not realized that the concern in their eyes was for him he might have thought them worried that an outsider was entering their private tropical haven or something.

"Cid, Nida," Reeve said as greeting, before gesturing that the two follow the larger group.

A flash of people running before him across a carnage strewn battlefield, and explosions on either side, and then Nida was back admiring the lush foliage and extreme beauty of this city. There were few places back home where you could enjoy a climate like this without having to worry about dangerously powerful predators. Reeve and the others led Cid and Nida into a large building of what looked like nothing more complex than wood from the outside – a bunker of concrete set into the side of a cliff, but he only sees that now that Seifer and Squall have brought him out of it, and only for a moment because of the bombs – but turned out to be beautifully constructed on the inside to appear like a full research facility. Everyone sat around a large table – Laguna, Ellone, Rinoa all protesting the idea of Squall going, he's too valuable for this sort of thing, they need him leading, and Nida offering his own expertise in getting the job done – Reeve sitting sternly by a monitor – BP 110/70, quite healthy our pilot, despite the leg – and looking as if he was readying himself for the big reveal.

And then Reeve's eyes go wide as he's looking at Nida – so wide, so wide as if they were alive, but the blood is everywhere – in almost disbelief.

"Cid told me on the radio that you were doing better," Reeve began, "but you're not. Are you? They are still happening?"

Cid spoke up to deny – not Zebalga not Zebalga not Zebalga the constant mantra – but Nida cut him off.

"Almost constantly since we landed. Something you say, something I see, it triggers it. Quick flashes of memories, and all running alongside reality. Like double vision."

Reeve nodded to himself, then gestured to Vincent. The man was instantly at Nida's side, and before Cid could protest, again, Vincent was injecting Nida with something.

There was nothing. No flashes, no double vision, just a slight tingle from where the needle had gone. Nida was sure that something should be brought forth by the needle, but he just took it in stride. If he thought to hard maybe they would come and take away this brief respite.

"What is happening to you is because, we believe, of this 'Time Compression' thing you spoke to us about, back when we were trying to gather detailed information as to how you arrived here..."

Nida shook his head and cut in. "Only things I've done, nothing I don't recognize."

"But, without the sedative Vincent gave you, the sights were almost constant? Who is to say that it would not soon start showing you potential futures of yourself? Your death? The death of loved ones? Do you really want to run the risk of exposure to that if we can avoid it?"

Nida didn't have to think hard to know he wasn't looking forward to anything like that.

"Good. Vincent will stay there to administer more shots if you need. Just tell us if you need more. Otherwise, please listen to what I have to say to you today."

"May I ask a quick question?"

"Of course."

"What are Cloud and Nanaki doing here?"

Reeve smiled kindly, though he looked almost annoyed with the question. "They will fill in details I cannot."

With that Reeve launched into a long, and again obviously rehearsed speech. Apparently in these last months Reeve's people had managed to uncover more documents from a trio of doctors named Hojo, Gast, and Valentine (here Nida looked curiously at Vincent). These documents had yielded a minor amount of information about another situation and series of tests involving a man referred to only as 'Subject Alpha-D'. This man had appeared one day in the middle of Midgar and started rising up a storm, threatening people and talking about events that did not exist. Some of the ramblings had been much like what there had been to hear in Nida's speech to AVALANCHE: a war; sorceress; compression; and wanting to go home. So much fear, so much suffering. For nearly a year and a half the trio would study the man between other projects, having a set group of four research assistants watching him night and day. Towards the end, the records said, the man began to black out, and then go mad.

For obvious reasons Reeve had found this information interesting, and demanded all other records related to this to be found, as well as any of the research assistants that might still be living. Luckily for him, one of them was actually still working in science, and actually worked for the WRO, though he was close to retirement at this point. The man told of things he had never written in his reports to superiors: the horror of the man in those final days; how often he would weep and act as if he was interacting with things that weren't there; and how, in the end, his eyes just focused on some point in the distance and he responded to nothing else again, save one thing... Mako.

Nida was sure it was a kindness Reeve did that he didn't share details of the experiments done upon this man with Mako, only the results of the final experiment: total immersion within mako. Here the testing had both yielded interesting and disturbing results.

"Balamb," Reeve said, his tone carefully measured, "was the final word on his lips. The researchers did not know the importance of this word, but they were told to record, and they did. They didn't feel it important to share the words of a dying man with their superiors. Over the next few days they said he just... faded away. He was there, and then he was no where, except more gradually."

"I don't understand why you bring me here just to tell me this horrible sort of news."

Quickly he nodded to Vincent, feeling the edge he'd come to notice he wasn't walking over any more, and the man injected him.

"Well, first of all, the serum Vincent is using on you happens to be from the studies done of this man. But mainly... Well, here I should let Nanaki take over."

The red beast nodded, something he exaggerated so that all the humans could see it before speaking.

"When we were at the Mako spring, do you remember what Siren said of the feel of Mako?"

"She said it felt like home, but not quite. Why does that matter?" Nida responded, his manner flippant. He couldn't help it though. All it sounded like right now was that he was being given less than half a year before he was completely mad, and around six months before he'd want to die.

"Mako is the Lifeblood of this planet, and we would suspect it is that of many other worlds as well," Nanaki said, unshaken by Nida's tone. "We learned in recent years that the Lifestream is capable of... transportation to other places, where it settles again. Thus recent discussions suggest that all worlds with life have a Lifestream of their own. This is further suggested to us, at least for your world, from the fact that you told us that magic wells up from the ground, and information you gave us about Siren's ability to find these things, as if she was connected to it. Plus all creatures have this magic and share it, even humans who cannot access it. This would be part of your world's equivalent of the Lifestream."

Here Nanaki paused, as if to let something sink in, but it was obviously something only he thought was important, so he resumed. "It has been my belief for a long time that all of these Lifestreams are interconnected. Siren's comment about how ours was like her home, but not quite, only made me suspect this more."

"And the point?" Nida demanded. The serum or sedative or whatever was starting to make him sleepy, and the last thing he wanted to do was fall asleep. Would he wake?

"If these Lifestreams are interconnected, they would be an ideal way for you to be returned to your home, with Siren as a guide, since she knows what the Lifestream she is from feels like in ways that no flesh and blood creature can understand."

"The problem is," Cloud said, speaking for the first time, "We can't be sure how you could be transported through the Lifestreams, how they are connected, and most importantly, if the Mako would affect you powerfully. Mako poisoning is very dangerous, and it would degrade your condition far more quickly than the pace you are already..."

'Degrading,' Nida's mind provided, knowing no one actually wanted to hear it said.

"This is fucking crazy!" Cid shouted, and Nida was surprised it had taken him this long to speak up. "You fucking bastards think throwing him in a vat of Mako is the answer! Like fuck I'm going to let you do that!"

"Firstly, it is not your decision to make, Cid," Reeve said, voice still utterly calm. He must have practiced this part too. "Secondly, we still aren't sure the best way to accomplish this. We aren't sure what the exposure of this other man to Mako did to him. He might have returned to where he came from, for I do believe he was from Nida's world. He might have gone elsewhere, this odd combination of a Time Compressed body and Lifestreams throwing him off course or destroying him. We just do not know. And we cannot know."

And then the arguing began, Cid and Reeve shouting at each other as if it would accomplish anything at all. Slowly Nida could feel the edges returning to his mind, and for the first time since they had started he was sure of what they were, a horrible side-effect of Odine's attempt to recreate Time Compression. And he knew with certainty that it was killing him. Slowly, and viciously.

"I'll do it."

Still the arguments continued around him, and finally Nida slammed his fist down – Squall's gloved fist on a conference table in Esthar – on the table.

"I'll do it."

The attention is all on him – words cut through Squall's fist on the table, confident voice of the pilot leaving no question at all that he would not let his superior do the impossible and die for it.

"I'm not going to live with this, all of the worst memories of the worst times in my life. If it's going to kill me to try this, I'm going to do it now, while I can still consider that what I'm seeing isn't the reality I'm living in at the moment. And you are either going to help me or I'm going to find this 'Lifestream' myself and throw myself in. Understand?"

They all stared at him.

No one spoke.

But Cid's eyes met his, and Nida could feel his own heart breaking again, and see a body covered in blood in his arms, killed by his own actions, heart cut right in half.

And as long as Cid was staring at him, he couldn't shake the image.


	15. Chapter 13

Author's Notes: I know Cloud didn't do much last chapter... but that was because he was there for what he would add to this one. Boy, he was long winded this time. I image it was much like in the inn in Calm, telling a story that he never really wanted to share.

I hate to say that after this there is only one more chapter and the epi.

P.S. LONGEST CHAPTER

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 13

"That would be a... dangerous approach," Reeve said at length, trying to break the tension in the air after Nida's sudden declaration. "We do not know for sure, despite Nanaki's suspicions, that the Lifestreams are connected, or that merely throwing yourself in will do anything to help you at all. In fact, it could potentially make things worse, accelerate your condition..."

"So I die in three months instead of six?" Nida demanded. Now that his mind was made up, he was tired of those before him questioning it, rather than just providing the help they promised.

"Or that you die in six months instead of years, leading a relatively normal life."

'Normal.' The word made Nida scoff. How could they call what he was experiencing 'normal'? He was reliving moments of his life at the same second as he was experiencing everything happening in what he must assume, for now, was real time. And from what he heard, what he felt was true in his own body, he was only going to get worse from here. Eventually he'd be unable to tell reality from the memories.

"Relatively being the key word," Cid grumbled. "How the fuck is any of this relatively normal? How does this even approach mother fucking normal? Don't you get it, Reeve? He's losing..."

His mind. Nida was getting quite tired of the assembled dancing around words, phrases, ideas. They didn't want to let him think that there was no real choice, even though this was the only real choice that had been put before him, this Mako stuff, this Lifestream.

When Cloud stands all eyes are on him, Nida's included, though at the same time he's seeing a blurry image of Squall standing, about to end an entire argument by walking from the room. That, Nida thought, would solve little, but it was really Cloud's choice to make. He seemed to be the one that everyone in this AVALANCHE group seemed to defer to, the same kind of leader Squall was, but with a larger spoken vocabulary.

"This is a lot for us to spring upon Nida all at once," the blond pronounced. "And I have a suspicion that he hasn't actually rested in a while. So, while you two bicker, I will show Nida to a room to rest. Vincent, please accompany me, so you can show him how much of the stuff to inject if it begins to bother him."

Reeve and Cid both looked about ready to leap to their feet and protest, but the look he cast at them both prevented such behavior. Nida had seen the same look in Squall's eyes, normally directed at either Zell and Seifer, or Quistis and Seifer. The two men remained in place even as Vincent rose, carefully using his gold claw on Nida's arm to encourage him to his feet. Another look passed through Cloud's eyes, a 'you're in charge here' kind of look to Nanaki, again like what Squall would use, often pointed at Quistis, but sometimes at Nida because he kept his cool in arguments like this. Interesting how things changed.

"Follow me."

There was no room for argument in that tone.

When the trio reached outside again they did not, as Nida had thought they would, headed towards the rest of the town, but rather towards a nearby cliff, up from which Nida could see the faintest green aura. As they moved closer Nida noticed it was less of an aura of green and a cliff, but rather a large lake of shifting, brilliantly lit, green mass. The smell was like ozone and spring rain, an odd combination in his opinion, and the lights danced in the great lake. There were no waves in this lake, not even the faintest ripple, but somehow it still seemed as if it was moving. Almost as if it was a million long, brilliantly green strings flowing around, through, and over each other, but never actually moving.

It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, Ragnarok be damned.

"Back when we were trying to stop Sephiroth and Shin-Ra there were Weapons..."

"There are Weapons where I am from," Nida cut in. Cloud looked as if he was about to protest with something like 'not a sword or axe kind of weapon', but something the blond saw as Nida looked at him dissuaded him.

"Well, they were released from the northern ices when they felt Gaia was threatened. We tried to flee, and everyone made it, except for me. I fell into the Lifestream as it rose up to fill the void left by the children of Minerva. I was found here, in Mideel. Later a Weapon attacked us here in Mideel. I couldn't fight, I couldn't help, and when it died, the ground broke open, calling once more the Lifestream to the surface. Other than in the Northern Cave, this is the largest and most easily accessed pool of Mako here on Gaia."

Nida only now noticed that Vincent had not followed them to the edge of the pool of Mako, rather standing several feet behind them, his back to them to imply privacy.

"There are worse things than death, Nomura, and deaths you can die that are far worse than the gradual madness you will know if we don't do anything. Mako, the Lifestream, it is one of the most beautiful things in our world, giving life to everything and being a unity of all of that life. It is also the most dangerous substance that man knows. And this... this poisonous form of life, this is what we're trying to figure out to use to help you."

"Then let it help me. If this is connected to the source of life for my own world, and I really am as jarred out of time and space as I think I'm growing, isn't this the best means to get back, to save myself? I know I could die, but..."

"You have _no_ idea what Mako does to a person."

"You survived this Lifestream, twice."

"And that means, between that and the experiments of Hojo, no one on this planet knows just how dangerous the Lifestream is as I do! No one has better understanding of what the Lifestream and Mako can do to you, how you would beg for death and be denied it!"

Cloud had grabbed Nida's arm and spun the SeeD to face him at this point, and the look in his glowing blue eyes terrified Nida in a way he couldn't understand. He wretched his arm free and pulled back, and were it not for Cloud's quick reflexes, he would have stumbled over the edge and into the lake of the Lifestream. As it was Cloud's hand flashed out again, wrapping once more around Nida's bicep, and pulling them both away from the edge.

"Idiot. You can't even begin to understand. So sit down and listen."

Both Nida and Cloud did this, and the blond gestured for Vincent to join them. The man had apparently been watching them to some degree and sat himself on the other side of Nida, carefully giving him another injection before Cloud decided he would begin talking.

"The Lifestream is the source of materia and thus our magic, and the source of Mako, once used for power in our world. There have been sciences studying the properties of Mako for more years than any living sentient being, even Vincent and Nanaki, can remember. They discovered one thing about Mako was more alarming than any other thing: Mako poisoning. Apparently when the limitless potential of Mako, the purest form of life itself, can change that which it comes into contact with, and through a two part process. Those two parts, the physical and the mental, are intertwined in ways we humans cannot even imagine.

"All living things return to the Lifestream after their life ceases, giving to the Lifestream the whole of their experiences. From the Lifestream comes the ability for new life to exist, based to a degree upon those other lives. Mako is the medium of this life, of the experiences and memories of everyone and everything that has ever lived. Materia derived from Mako is, thus, a crystallization of the memories and knowledge of those who have gone before. But, raw Mako hasn't been filtered to knowledge of what a fire spell is, or how to control it. Rather, raw Mako is memories and knowledge, pure and simple. A single drop of Mako can hold in it the entire life experience of a worm from the Calm plains, all the knowledge of how to properly grow corn from at least a hundred different farmers, and the entire awareness of an oak tree during a sunset.

"You would think this would be something interesting to experience, but it is not. In fact, it can be horrible. The more Mako you are exposed to, the more memories there are. You experience all of them at once, you know, and with every second of experience of all of those minds runs through you, you begin to lose yourself to it. Your awareness melts into the Mako if you're exposed long enough. You seek to live out not just a moment of an oak tree, but the total cumulative product of an entire grove, and you reach out for those memories, that knowledge, and drift further away from your self, making it easier for that self to melt away."

At this point Cloud stopped gazing at the Mako and looked directly at Nida.

"I've had Mako poisoning three times. I'm a highly sensitive individual. The first time I was submerged in a tube of Mako for an unknown amount of time. Years, I know that, but I can not be positive how many, even if I have dates in my head. I gave in easily to the memories, trying to experience things, but I was luckily limited to the amount of Mako I was exposed to. Shinra's Soldier program had all of it's men exposed to Mako showers, but in low doses. It made them the pinnacle of human life: stronger, faster, smarter, and far more powerful. Those that could handle more took it and became beings that were almost like gods. Those that could barely handle any were grunts that took care of everything. I was a grunt, until Hojo got a hold of me and forcefully exposed me to more Mako than any currently living human had ever experienced. And as my mind slipped away, my body, even as it grew stronger, was giving out, changing.

"I've seen what happens to people exposed to too much Mako. Monsters, far more powerful and hideous than anything you've ever seen. They take of every experience, and their bodies use it to make themselves 'better'. Once out of the Mako they rarely live more than a few days, and they die pitiful deaths. They are proof that there are worse things than just plain death. Luckily Hojo's experiments also used Mako inhibiting chemicals, which prevented the horrible changes in me, in most cases. I still became like a Soldier. But, when I was broken out of there, I had no mind to speak of. My memories were all gone, melted away into the Lifestream. I was doomed and in the full grips of Mako poisoning, though my body didn't fully reflect it.

"Can you imagine, Nida, what it is to be a completely and utterly blank slate? Removed from the Mako, with everything I was lost to the Mako, that was what I was. A friend of mine carried me from that place, dressed me in his clothes, spoke to me. All the while I was a blank slate, and absorbing everything about him. He told me about my childhood as I had told him, he told me about his, he told me about the mission we were on, Sephiroth, and everything he felt he could part with. I was blank as I watched him practice in the early mornings, as I listened to how he spoke, as he carried me. And slowly, he filled me up with an odd mixture of him and me..."

Cloud shook his head, looking out at the Lifestream. There were no tears, but Nida could sense that it was sheer will. Cloud was mourning something, always mourning something.

"Zack died, and with that death I took the last of him. I took his weapon after we'd been abandoned by those meant to kill us, and went into Midgar, thinking I was myself, but that I was also him. I was a Soldier First Class in my mind, and my body had the skills to go along with it, Zack's skills. Things I thought I had done, I had not, people I thought I knew, I didn't. And this lasted a long time, until the Northern Crater. The only two who knew better said nothing, one for confusion, the other because she knew it would break me, or at least I think that was why. But with the Lifestream came something that even the tube of Mako could not do.

"Limitless experiences, Nida, that is what the Lifestream is. I believe I was in there for no more than a day before I washed up ashore here, spewed out by an underwater Mako vent. Again I was blank, or mostly so. I was buried in my own mind, in the false memories, and while seeking out, to some degree, my lost memories, and those of my friend. When the others found me, I was a wreck. There honestly was no hope for me. Then I was exposed to the Lifestream again, this time with Tifa. Her sheer force of will brought her into my fragmented mind, and with her help, I picked up the pieces of my life, separated them from those of my best friend, and began to live again. I was no longer blank, but I still remembered all I had done, all I had thought I was. And it sickened me. It was amazing that I didn't come out of the whole thing mad, amazing that Tifa, in her desire to help me, didn't lose her own mind.

"What I'm basically telling you is that, if anything goes wrong, if we expose you even the slightest bit, you won't just be living your own memories at the same time as your life. You'll be living everyone's memories at the same time, and you won't have a life. It's likely you won't remember us, and your memories lost forever due to their foreignness to our Lifestream. The process will break you, and we don't know any way to repair it. You won't die so easily, but you can't very well call what happens from Mako poisoning life either. It honestly might be better to go mad from what you have now, and know that in the very least you are still yourself, than to be no one, and everything."

And that was it. Cloud grew really silent, and something about the silence between him and Vincent told Nida that Cloud had never discussed this before. And yet...

"Yeah, I'm sure it was hard on you and all, but let's look at this logically. I'm not from here, so it'd be easy to separate my memories from the rest. Plus I have Siren, she would know, right? She could guide me to where I need to be..."

"Or," Vincent said, speaking up for the first time, "The Lifestream could recognize the both of you as a threat and kill you. Or you could be even more susceptible to the poisoning. Or a lot of things. That unknown factor is what worries us."

"And just sitting around and worrying isn't going to get anything done," Nida growled, rising to his feet.

"And throwing yourself blindly to destruction is only going to hit Cid."

Nida froze for a moment at Cloud' comment, his eyes glued to the great green lake of light. It flowed so beautifully, the most alluring and glorious thing he'd ever before had the pleasure of beholding.

"I don't want Cid hurt. And I fear it will be worse for him if I force myself to his side as I become less and less mentally here. Who would want to take care of someone in the state I'm bound to end up in? Better to get this done earlier, get it out of the way and let him move on..."

"That isn't what he'd want."

There was no response from Nida. He merely continued to stare out at the glowing green, and the feeling of familiarity and unease he'd felt since first laying his eyes upon it only began to grow. This whole thing felt wrong, and right, but he couldn't quite understand what he was feeling. And so, for the first time in this chaotic twenty-four hours, Nida reached out for Siren.

He found silence. It took everything to keep himself from panicking, for fear that it would drop him into another episode that he'd have trouble escaping, as the ones that came with panic always were. Those ones were always the worst, he would end up back with Boyce, the hand held out, and the dead body of his lover behind him.

"Nida?" Cloud's voice came, worried, as the man stepped up behind him. "Are you okay?"

"I can't feel her. I can't reach Siren. I can't hear her voice, or even sense her. I junctioned her, I know it. Where is she?"

"Calm down," Vincent said, already at Nida's other side. "You said she resides in your memories, correct? Then it is likely that the drug we've given you to inhibit the memories is temporarily blocking her."

This time Nida did start to panic. "Block her? How is she to advise me, help me, guide me, if I can't even have access to her?"

It occurred to him, then, that this had happened before, people betraying him, removing Siren from him. He remembered it, remembered people treating him poorly and trying to keep him from what he was supposed to do. Now these two... 'heroes' were trying to keep him from the only thing that truly tied Nida to his world. They probably wanted him to go into the Mako without her, to see what would happen. What horrible people. But he wouldn't let them do that. He would fight.

"Nida, calm down," Cloud said, slowly advancing on Nida and putting a hand out to rest on Nida's shoulder. "I'm sure Siren is fine."

"Don't touch me!" Nida screamed, not knowing his own voice was near hysterics. Nor did he notice, not at first, the other three rushing from the building with the monitor he'd never really paid attention to.

"Nida!" Cid shouted, running forward. "Keep him away from the Mako!"

"_Nida!" he shouted, running forward, blade raised, "If I must I will keep you away from those SeeDs!"_

"No," Nida mumbled, backing even further away from the people around him. He was running out of land, and he knew it, and he was close to panic.

_The Mako, that was the green river_, came suddenly to Nida's mind, in that clarity before the panic. _I've dreamt of this. A green river and then blackness_.

And then, one more step, and the edge was crumbling under Nida's weight-bearing foot. True panic set in then, during the short fall to the Mako. A hand reached up to the edge and the sky, green looking from the light of the Lifestream. He hadn't meant for this.

He hadn't meant for any of this.

_I'm sorry, Cid, everyone. I'm sorry._

He screamed briefly when his body came in to contact with the glowing green, which felt like it was penetrating him, filling his every pore with life, potential, and knowledge.

And then there was darkness. Just like in the dream. Except this time there was no beautifully radiant woman in armor to come and lift him from this, to tell him it would be alright, and that she would guide him. There was nothing.

But there was everything. He could see it all, feel it all, be it all. His mind sought out the first logical thing to him, the feeling of wind, something to take his mind from this dreary blackness. What he found was that he had great wings, and the wind filled them perfectly as he glided over the trees, his eyes constantly searching for the tiniest of movements. Some movements were too big, those two legged things that walked the ground because they were not mighty enough to fly. Other movements were the trees, which would be cool and shaded at this time of day, but after the meal.

Then, there it was, the slightest movement upon the ground, amid the trees and the green stuff on the ground. Small, brown and gray, and none the wiser to the hungry king of the sky. Circling would only alert it to his presence, so wings were tucked in and the dive made, ready to pull up just in time for talons to sink into sweet red water.

_No, this is not where you belong. Come back._

Sky-master ignored the voice, settling on a branch with his kill and setting his sharp hooked beak into the flesh. If he ate upon the ground those two-legged would try and take his kill. They were worse than the sky-scroungers, who would appear in numbers to try and scare him from his kill. No, today he would have his ground food, and none would stop him.

_While I call you 'hawk', that does not mean you are one. Come back to me._

He was floating in the black again, the voice still echoing about him. He had to get away from it, he didn't like the sound. It was keeping him from being one with it all.

So he chose something that couldn't hear.

Deep his roots went, into the secret places of water and food. High his branches stretched, embracing the warm light. Wide and thick grew his leaves, dancing in the sweet breeze. And he was happy.

_No, I will not allow you to hide in such a ridiculous, and might I point out land-bound, form. Get a hold of yourself Nida._

Nida. Nida. The name echoed in the not-mind of the tree, and then there was the darkness again, but it wasn't consuming. Rather it seemed to be a form of something else, and he too hard form here. Two legs, two arms, two eyes, and lots of other things as a human should have. He was human, and his name was Nida.

At least, he thought so.

"Better, but we're not there just quite yet. But I'm not very helpful like that, you know. I can only take you to the guides. But, and this is important Nida, you have to focus on staying yourself, and staying with me."

She was beautiful. The woman stood before him on a path of every changing green light seemingly made of strings. Her long hair was a very pale gold and gathered into a large braid that she had pulled to the front of her beautifully pale body, with skin so white it almost shone green in the changing light. All she wore, as far as he could tell, was a long white shift, and it failed to fall below her knees, leaving beautifully proportioned legs and feet bare where he could appreciate them. Her eyes, though, were the most striking thing, an odd mixture of gold and emerald, and even while they seemed worried they looked to be laughing, just like her voice. The voice was purely music.

"Nida, do not focus upon me like that. Just focus upon following me. The paths can be dangerous for the living, and hard to navigate for even the immortal like myself. But they are the only way to get to the guides, and only they can grant us audience with the one that this world is of."

"Why," he started, only to be startled by his own voice. After a moment and a look from the woman, he continued. "Why do you call me Nida?"

There was a sigh, and it was as beautiful as the woman. "That is your name. Hold on to it, and think 'what does it mean to be Nida Nomura, Level A SeeD?' Can you do that for me?"

He nodded. The woman started down the ever shifting path, but paused after a bit. She turned back to look at Nida, who wasn't moving.

"What?"

"Who are you?"

This made the woman's eyes go wide.

"We've been partnered together for this many years and you forget me? Even with your mind in the state it is, how could you forget me, my dove? I am Siren."

Something in his mind reacted to that word, but all it gave him was the image of a woman clad in few feathers, with gold and green hair, large green wings from her head, and a green glass harp. That image looked nothing like this woman. He told her so. And the woman looked down at herself, and her eyes went wider still.

"Well, I have not seen this in many a year. I had forgotten what it was like... But there is no time for that. I am still Siren, even if I do not look it. Now please, Nida, come with me."

For longer than Nida could imagine he followed the beautiful woman, marveling at the fact that her every word sounded as a song, and even the sound of her feet on the shifting path sounded like music. He also tried, very hard, to do what Siren told him, like thinking about what it meant to be Nida Nomura. Mostly that name carried with it the idea of sadness, the joy of flight, and confusion about who he was. If Nida Nomura hadn't known who he was, even with all of those titles and all those friends, how was Nida supposed to know what it meant to be Nida Nomura? This was all very hard.

"Nida, stop," Siren's voice came, and the edge in it, almost discordant, caused him to stumble and fall to his hands and knees on the path. "And don't leave the path."

"Siren," he said, nervously, only to be cut off when a hand descended upon his shoulder.

"He's in a bad shape. Almost as bad as Cloud was. He's barely holding on to his name," a female voice, not musical like Siren's, but still somewhat familiar, said.

"Spike wasn't already lost in the world, not really. This one..." This voice was male, and not so familiar.

"Who are you?" Siren demanded, turning to face the two people that Nida noticed on either side of himself. Neither of them stood on the path, but there seemed to be a green light around them. One was a woman with brown hair, clad in pink, and with the gentlest smile on her face. The other was in black, and looked like a warrior with the scar on his cheek. While he was smiling too, it was more friendly and almost challenging than comforting.

"My name is Aeris, and this is Zack. We are the ones you were calling 'guides'," the woman in pink said, and she held a hand out to the golden Siren, which the far more mature looking woman did not shake. "We are supposed to take you to the Lady."

"She sent a warrior and a priest to me? I almost feel insulted. No heroes?"

"I am the one who summoned Holy to this place, and whose weapon Nida has been carrying. Zack has saved the world as well, in his own way. It was him that trained Cloud. And we are both the chosen of Minerva. What better qualifications are there?"

"She could have sent Shiva," Siren mumbled, before stooping beside Nida and pulling him to his feet.

"She doesn't like company," Zack said, rolling his eyes in a way that Nida was sure was meant to mean something. He couldn't figure it out though. When he was standing he felt the hand of the woman in pink as she placed it upon his cheek.

"It is very sad," she said at length, "that this had to happen to you, Nida. I can see you're mostly gone. And you probably don't remember how I used to come to you to take the dreams, and comfort you. But soon... soon they will be gone."

"That is no promise you can make," Siren warned her, but still the woman let Aeris take Nida's hand and guide him into the blackness, away from the relative safety of the green path.

"That is true, but I think Minerva can help him. She can do anything. She is that which we are of."

"I fought her once," Zack said, oozing pride. Well, not actually, but Nida could think of no better way to put it.

Siren rolled her eyes this time, though only when looking at Nida so she could be sure that he saw. Not that he understood why. These people were odd.

For a while they walked through the darkness, with only the thin auras of green around Aeris and Zack to light anything. Then, suddenly, the darkness seemed less, even though there was no change in the light levels. Well, that wasn't totally true, for there was now a woman far more radiant than Siren standing before them. Zack and Aeris bowed, smiled at Nida, and walked off.

Beside this woman, Siren was nothing. Her hair was the yellow of the sun, her skin practically the color of snow, and her face so young and beautifully elegant, even though she did not smile at the pair before her. She was clad in the purest white, such that her skin almost seemed dark in comparison, and the dress fell all around her, until it sank seamlessly into the ever shifting green at her feet, Mako Nida thought now. It was the same color as her eyes, and the gem set in gold and what looked like blued steel that was her tiara. Around her pale shoulders was settled a cape of blue-green, the same color as the Mako at her feet, save that there was no inherent glow to it, as there was to the whole of the rest of her.

"Minerva," Siren said, sweeping into a deep bow, and gesturing for Zack to follow suit. "It has been months since you last came to speak to me. I have worked hard without the guidance you offered me..."

_Be not bitter Siren, there was nothing I could do to assist you at the time. I could send those I had to comfort your chosen, but little more. As I have said, he is not of me. I have no sway over him. _

Siren seemed to scoff, but she said nothing else. Minerva moved past her to Nida, placing a hand upon the crown of his head.

_There is little left here. It is to be expected though. You plunged into my Lifestream without thought and in a panic. Foolish. But I cannot leave your memories here to taint the stream, as I cannot leave you here for long for fear you would do this place harm. _

"Then you will help him?" Siren asked.

_To a degree, young one. He must be willing to take it back, all of it. Even that which he did not first remember, or desire. Every last drop. Is he strong enough for this?_

"There is none stronger than my chosen!" Siren protested, only to be shushed by the goddess.

Minerva reached down and lifted Nida's head to look upon her. Up close she was even more magnificent.

_Will you take them, even if you want them not? Everything you were and everything you will be? The good, the bad? If you do not, I must purge the whole of this place of you and yours forever. It is a fate worse than death. _

All he could do was nod. Whatever this goddess wanted, he would do.

_Then prepare yourself._

_------- _

Nida was flat out fucking tired of passing out. Seriously, no joking, and thank you very much. Black outs were no fun, and he'd like to have no more now, especially the ones with head aches afterwards, okay?

"He's wakening," a voice said at his side, Siren's. It was odd though, for it did not sound as if it was from his mind.

_As is to be expected. He was as strong as you told me. He will be an ideal tool. Now, leave us for a time. I must speak to this one of things I cannot tell you.  
_

"Of course," Siren's voice came, but further from Nida's side now. And when he opened his eyes, all there was to see was a radiant woman who was most definitely not Siren. There was an ageless beauty in her face that even a Guardian could not possess, and infinite wisdom.

"Who are you?" Nida croaked out, and for a moment the woman's face actually softened into a smile.

_My name is Minerva, and I am the goddess of Gaia. Think of me in relation to this world as the one you call Hyne is to your own._

Nida flinched away that name, but he did not respond, or even question why her voice was coming to him in a way that was normally that of Siren. One did not question the gods.

_Yes, I understand your reaction. He is not the most gentle of our kind. Still, you are his, and you belong in his world. Sadly, I cannot force you to go back. I can remove you from existence, but I cannot force you over the bridge between the worlds. I would much prefer, of course, that you went to your own world. I have need of you there. There is a darkness rising in your world that threatens many places, the world of Hyne first and foremost. _

"I want to go back," Nida agreed, frowning. "But I do not believe that my presence there will affect anything. I am just a minor pilot."

_Do you think I would put my faith into someone utterly worthless? I could have destroyed you the second you touched Mako, but I let you live, because you are important. Do not question the knowledge of a goddess._

For a moment his awareness of Minerva shifted. No longer was she a gentle looking woman, but rather she was in full armor, with large crescent moons adorning her collar and looking razor sharp. In her right hand was a long spear, and her left held the largest shield Nida had ever seen. All of this, and the chest plate, were made of gold and steel, or something very much like steel. He knew, in the smallest fraction of an instant, that there was nothing he could do to rightly oppose this woman, especially not in her own domain.

"Forgive me, great one. I did not mean to question, I just did not feel I was important. But you are far more knowledgeable than I. I will return with Siren to my world at once."

_But you must leave something with me. The only proper way to bridge the gap is with sacrifice. I cannot take Siren, for she is of Hyne, as are you and your life, which are needed there anyway. But you must give to me something as payment, which you are willing to part with._

His first reaction was to say he would give her his memories of the war, of the man he had loved before it and killed, and his memories of Boyce. Instantly he knew this would not work, if there was trouble back home it would only be made worse if he was not sure what was going on. He put his hands in his pockets as he thought, and his hand came into contact with metal. Slowly Nida drew out the pilot wings he had taken from Cid's house, replacing them with his own.

This, he realized sadly, was what he had to give up. His memories of this year here, of the life he had lived, of Cid, of everything. And it pained him to no end.

"Can you take emotions?"

_Yes. They are usually enough of a price. What would you have me take?_

Nida continued to stare down at the pilot wings as he spoke.

"Take my love then. I loved Cid Highwind in these days in your world. I am sorrowful that I ever hurt him as I did, falling into the Mako without saying goodbye, disappearing. And with the love, take the memories of the times we spent together that would hint at love."

_That does not seem... conventional, even to me._

"Do you believe I can do what I am meant to if my heart lingers here? Can I save this place if all I do is long to return to it? Can I be a warrior with loyalties and heart divided?"

Minerva frowned at Nida, but at length she nodded and placed a hand upon her head.

_I will take this not only from you, but I will take all hints of it from Cid Highwind and those you met as well. That is the only way to make a clean break in this world, to fully remove you from it. Is this acceptable?_

"No," he admitted, "but there is no other way, is there?"

Still Minerva frowned. _There is, but it is more painful. I can leave with them all of their feelings for you, and all of their memories, and even leave with them the sense that you must have made it home. I will help the ache to cease for Cid, for he is one of my beloved, as they all are. But in return, I will leave in you no memory of this place. You will know not, once the bridge closes with your awakening in your world, anything of what has passed here, or even the love you found. I will take too, those wings from you, and leave them back for Cid, beside yours. Would this be price enough?_

It didn't seem fair, Nida thought, that he would lose all of his pain and Cid would keep his. But, what it really would be was that Cid would have pain, but still love, and Nida would experience neither. He would lose memory of the only person he had truly felt for, or why he was supposed to act in his own world. In the end he would return home as if nothing happened.

"I feel as if it is too much an easing for me, and too much a burden for him."

_Except he will know what love was, and you will long for it forever, never understanding why you cannot truly find it. Cid was not the one meant for you, or you for him, but even if I remove memory, part of you will always know you had it and lost it, and this is the greatest pain of existence. Can you bear this burden?_

Nida thought hard and long about the choice presented to him, looking off into the blackness around him, and back at Minerva.

"I do not know, but I will try."

Minerva's hand on his brow grew warm with light, and behind her a door seemed to be carved out of the darkness.

_Your path has opened, Child of Hyne. Go, walk it. I cannot accompany you, nor can Hyne help you through it. You must walk it with the Guardian. When you awaken you will remember none of this, and the Guardian will never be able to speak of it with you or any others. And Child of Hyne..._

"Yes, Lady Minerva?" Nida asked, already at the door, Siren mysteriously at his side.

_I wish that somehow you will overcome what price I have set on you, and you will again find love._

Nida said nothing, merely pushed the door open and stepped through, Siren at his side. Together they trekked down a long corridor until they reached another door, this one glowing blue under the edge as Minerva's door, when Nida would look back, had glowed green. After a deep breath Nida pushed. A large man stood in the darkness, clothed in black and crimson, with a cloak of the blue that had shone under the door. As Nida and Siren strode forward, the God began to speak.

_Welcome, my sweet child Siren, and Nida, blood of the tribe and of the wise man. Welcome home. _


	16. Chapter 14

Author's Notes: The last chapter. There will be an epilogue by the end of the week. PLEASE read the comments on that one. Important stuff and all.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Chapter 14

No sooner had Nida caught a glimpse of the god before him than he went down on one knee. It was a fool that did not keep intense respect and honor in mind when before their creator. If you angered a god, your creator, they could easily unmake you.

_Up. I will not have groveling. Act as if I were an equal, even though you are not. I am not amused by such weak displays._

Just as quickly as he'd knelt, Nida was on his feet, but it was not of his own accord. When Hyne said 'up' Nida's body had obeyed on its own. The feeling had been awkward, with muscles and joints almost seeming to hold a will of their own, separate of his own. He was pondering this when he heard a rumbling chuckle from the god.

_I had forgotten the way my voice affected your kind. They only I ever speak to are my guardian children, and their wills are too strong to be swayed by such a simple command._

If that was simple, Nida didn't much want to see what a powerful command was. Still, he understood why his body had done as it had been told. This was the creator of his people, something the body of any creature must recognize on some sort of level, a memory of the origin. Nida could not help but begin to question whether humanity had ever actually fought and defeated this great being. Humans, it turned out, were obviously delusional, and the legends regarding the Zebalga had to be wrong.

_Ah, this is not true. Humans did in fact face me. Most of the tale you know is wrong, but there is some truth. Sit, listen. You will not remember it when you waken, but someone should know better than those silly legends._

Nida obeyed quickly, not even pausing to wonder if Hyne was capable of reading his mind. As he settled, Nida looked more closely upon the visage of his god. Hyne was like Minerva had been, radiant and ageless, but there the similarities ended. She had presented herself as a gentle woman, though Nida had sensed, and even briefly seen, that she was a warrior by nature. The god now seated at Nida's side presented himself outwardly as a warrior, but Nida could sense a peacefulness in him. His skin was like that of any human, save in color, which was either white with blue tattooing making intricate patterns, or blue with white tattooing doing the same. His hair was the gray of ashes, and his eyes the pale, glowing blue Nida believed at this point must be the color of the Lifestream of his own world. This color too was the cape about Hyne's shoulders, draped carefully over the black and crimson armor the god wore.

Below all of this, though, Nida could sense that the god was clad in something else, as Minerva had been clad in armor beyond the simple dress. He felt it would likely be a simple robe in the same pale blue as Hyne's eyes.

_In the beginning I made this world and resolved to create a place of peace and beauty. I built the air, seas, forests, plains, and I shaped the lands of my world, all with the smallest of tools of life. I made larger tools then, based in those first tools, and with them I further refined my world. I gave it life, that life might thrive, and return to me in the Lifestream, and that one day we would be able to move into our part of the great universal Lifestream. I wanted to bring something unique. So, in the end, all that was left after a time was to make a life that could feel, create, celebrate, and that were, above all else, peaceful. But I was so weary. I made my prototypes and foolishly left them to roam as I slept. I suppose you can guess what happened next..._

This part of the story Nida knew very well from the legends that were circulated among normal people, and the Zebalga.

"The people multiplied and spread all over the world while you slept..."

Here Nida had to trail off. He knew what humanity said happened next, but he was growing to doubt the idea of what humanity thought being true.

_They saw me when I awoke, and I saw them. There were many, and I was shocked, but proud to see my people. Then I learned, as I walked my world, that they warred constantly with each other, and in my name, or the name they had given me of Hyne. Such pain they created, such destruction. I lashed out at them with my smallest tools, and gave them illnesses. I set the world to rebelling against them that would destroy. So all, no, most, united to fight against me._

The tone in the god's voice (or the voice in Nida's head) was once more amused, though Nida did not understand why. Apparently, Nida assumed, the god too had been caught off guard at first by the idea of humans fighting immortals.

_They fought well, died bravely. In the end, when their leadership fell to a wise man named Vasacat, and I felt that they would find peace, I relented. I claimed to be defeated, and said I would give them a gift of half of my power, were they to let me live. It was no loss to me, as I'd intended to give it to my creations anyway. I left with them my body, to fade and spread into the world, endowing all with magic, and my spirit came to my Lifestream. And again, they warred. The wise one was disgusted, as was the brave warrior leader of a tribe called the Zebalga._

Nida could not help but flinch at the word. "Bastard people! Let the fires of Ifrit claim them all!"

_You hold ill feelings for your people. I do understand, but know they have long been misguided._

"They are not my people! The people are Garden are my people, not some savage fools!"

_They are your people. Your blood is half that of the line of Zebalga, and once that was a proud thing. But, as I was saying, they warred. The Zebalga leader was killed by his own brother, who then called himself King. This man conquered all others in the land of Centra, and I mourned the death of his brother, and what it brought to the world, bloodshed evermore. The son of the first wise one went to the King and told him that man could not access the magic of Hyne as they had fought for if all they did was shed blood. The Zebalga said this was a lie, and demanded that the wise one's son, Vascaroon, show them how to get to my magic. Vascaroon chose to lie, saying I tricked the people, taking the whole of my power away. It was easier than saying that man could only have the magic if they had peace. And the Zebalga began to again search for me, an eternally pointless quest. _

_Upon the death of the wise one, I brought him to me along with the fallen Zebalga warrior leader and made them of my own flesh, creating the first of my guardians of the magic, Griever from the Zebalga, and of Vascaroon the wise and peaceful Eden. _

Nida sat up straighter, unable to hold back his gasp. Everyone always wondered where Guardian Forces came from, and here he was, learning the origin of two of the four greats with no potential to relay it to those who would benefit most from such knowledge. If only he could remember.

_But you cannot, at least for now. All guardians, you see, watch over the people of my world, and each person finds particular favor in one or two guardians, though rarely do they grow as close to the guardian as you have with Siren, who favors you so. Yet the ones you think of as the 'great four' are less common with their attentions, and those they tend to favor are tightly bound in the fate of the world. At this day Griever smiles upon the lion, and Gilgamesh, known at times as Odin,upon the wolf. Bahamut favors the coyote. This last one confused me for a time, as he was of the line of Vascaroon, and normally Eden looks over his own bloodline. Eden, I discovered recently, looks instead towards the last true remaining ounce of Vascaroon's might, the only other remaining member of the bloodline. You are destined for great things, eagle, and mighty are those who you will be able to call. Sadly, none will remember your role in them. _

"Here, at least, you must be mistaken my lord. It sounds as if you mark me not only as Zebalga, but as Vascaroon's descendant. This cannot be right. I heard the prophecies as well as any other, guided by your own hand. I was the blood of Zebalga that was pivotal, and..."

_That one was not the blood of Vascaroon that was vital, but he was important. No, you are of dual bloodlines and that is why you are important. But explaining would be pointless, you will remember it not at all. Still, I would hope you would attend more to your dreams. They will guide you if you allow them to. Siren, my daughter, it is time to take him to the world. Protect him from the Lifestream. It is time the eagle went back to the place of the sky._

Siren was at Hyne's elbow, again her appearance changed, but less here than in the Lifestream of Gaia. She was pretty much the same except for being clad in emerald and gold, and the tips of her hair had a faint green tint. Otherwise she still seemed more or less human in looks. With a smile she beckoned to Nida, crooning her preferred title for him, my hawk, in a sweet way as, for the last time he laid his hand in hers. With Siren he followed a blue path much like the flowing green of Gaia's, only to be surprised at times when people he was sure were Guardians would join them, speaking with Siren in words Nida could not understand. The one that shocked Nida the most was a woman who looked identical to Siren, garbed in billowing green, orange, and yellow, and whose every movement seemed to be part of a greater dance. Not long after the woman had left them, Nida realized that the woman had to have been Quetzalcoatl.

"Indeed," Siren said when Nida asked. "My twin in life. She was a famous dancer, and I played music for her. She was also known as a summoner. I was proud to have her as my knight."

"You were a sorceress?" Nida questioned, utterly disbelieving.

"Many of us were, or were otherwise affected by the lives of them. Some were knights, siblings, or slayers. We are not evil, sorceresses. Some are, yes, but not the ones firmly rooted in the truths of life. There is, at any given time, at least three sorceresses in the living world, peaceful and happy, as well as others with types of magic, like the one you call Ellone. These women, and indeed men, have found a peace inside of themselves, in most cases. This enables them to access their inner magic, but yes, there is a push from the spirit of another sorceress joining with them. But some of them go bad, just like any other person. The only difference is how many lives they change."

Nida nodded, but felt he did not truly understand. So he followed Siren on the blue path, and took one last chance to think of Cid.

I'm sorry, he told Cid with all his heart. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to go so suddenly. But I hope you know that I...

"... love you."

"Yeah, save that for later," someone grumbled.

The response, the voice, both Seifer's. It brought Nida's mind sharply into focus, forced his eyes open, and caused him to squirm a bit.

"Hold still dammit!" Seifer barked, tightening his grip on Nida, the pilot only just noticing that he was being carried by the Galbadian Headmaster. "Couldn't have picked a better fucking place, could you? Maybe a resort town or something? Why the middle of mother fucking Centra?"

That didn't make sense to Nida at all. Why would he be in Centra? Why would Seifer be there too? Had he not just been in Odine's lab? How was he in the Centra ruins then? Fuck, he must have been hit pretty badly by a Tonberry while on a mission or something, lost some memory to go with it. Or maybe he was just temporarily disoriented. Either way, this sucked.

"Will you just put me down?" Nida hissed at the blond. "I can walk on my own you know." Not that he was sure he could, he just didn't like Seifer's complaining.

"Nope. Ice Prince said I wasn't to let you out of my sight. And, even if it would be easier to put you down, by the way lose some weight, I figure this is the best way to look after you."

"By carrying me around like your bride?"

"Yep." Seifer grinned, and it was infuriating.

There was no conceivable information, at least at this point, that could hint as to why Squall would order such a thing from Seifer. What was more shocking was the fact that Seifer was actually listening to something Squall ordered. These days Seifer just tended to wave his title in Squall's face to say he didn't have to listen, only to give in because the fact that was was still an active SeeD meant that, yes, he really did have to listen. Still, Seifer wasn't known for obeying anyone's orders.

"Since when do you listen to Squall?"

"Since his fucking fly boy, and in case you don't get it, that is you, missing for two whole months suddenly and finally has his Hyne-damned tracker go off and needs a pick up. And, surprise surprise, it's not in Esthar or the space station, or any of those places you like a lot, or even in Winhill. No, he pops up in Centra, just when I'm visiting with Matron. I swear the tight ass worries you're going to disappear again any moment, like you did in Odine's lab. So here I am, following orders to the best of my ability, which means I'm going to hold on with you, so if you go poof, Squall can't yell at me because I'll go poof too."

Two months? That wasn't possible.

"Two months? I've been gone for two months?"

"Why? How long did you think you were gone?"

A year, Nida almost felt like saying to be sarcastic, but something felt weird about that amount of time, and Seifer really did look worried.

"Few seconds? Maybe a bit longer? I don't know. One second I was with Odine, the machine is flipping out and I'm in pain, the next I'm waking up to your ugly mug."

This didn't seem to comfort Seifer, or even relax him enough to have him make a come back.

"Seems like that machine fucked you up worse that we thought. Squall wants it destroyed. After you disappeared he was the bright one to figure it had to do with your popping out. Mini-Compression or something, so we started to quietly check what sort of places you might be tied enough to so that you'd reappear there. We figured you'd be in Esthar, Winhill, Balamb, or just somewhere with lots of wind and birds. But you weren't. Here you are, in the least likely place possible."

"My family lived here," Nida said, much to his own shock as it was to Seifer's.

"Your records has Winhill..."

"No, my parents. Before the war, I lived here. There was a village here, in the center of fields. I lived with my mother and father. Elena, Samuel. Sheya. That was our last name. All I remembered when the orphanage was my name. I was only five. And the Nomura widow in Winhill took me in."

Seifer had stopped in his tracks, even though Nida would see that the flier was only ten feet away. It was confusing until he looked up at Seifer and saw the sheer shock on his face. Then Nida realized what had just happened, why Seifer was shocked to a stand still, he'd told the man about his childhood, something he should not remember because of how young he should have been, not to mention his use of GFs for the better part of his life. There was no way he should remember what he just had.

"I suppose it must have been rattled lose by Odine's fuck up," was all Nida could think to say. Still, his mind was dredging up other things Nida was sure it wasn't possible for him to be remembering.

"Great, looks like not only Doc K will have to check you out, but Ifrit-Breath too."

Nida couldn't help but chuckle at Seifer's name for the GF specialist that had learned much with the help of Garden during the last war. And, knowing there was little more he could do, Nida let Seifer carry him to the flier, withdrawing into his mind to seek out the gentle and mournful mental touch of his Guardian Force.

-------

Seifer, Nida discovered shortly after the flier had set down outside of Balamb Garden, had not exaggerated when he'd implied that a lot of people had been worried, despite the best efforts to keep his disappearance under wraps. It wasn't easy to explain away the fact that a high end SeeD and instructor was missing, though. By the time the Galbadian Headmaster had carried Nida most of the way to the door (having managed to grab the pilot just after the flier set down), a crowd had formed behind the assembled command-level SeeDs. Everyone was there, Squall the High SeeD Commander (and how he hated the title), Quistis and Zell as Headmaster and SeeD Commander of Balamb, Selphie and Irvine from their jobs controlling Traia Garden, and even Fujin, Seifer's SeeD Commander at Galbadia. Apparently the top ranking Garden officials had all heard of Nida's return, and were now awaiting answers. Even the crowd behind them seemed to realize that everyone was waiting for Nida.

Luckily for Nida, as private as he liked to keep his life, the presence of all of these top level SeeDs for him would probably create rumors that Nida had been away on an important mission. Still, that didn't save him from the embarrassment of Seifer's carrying him. Thing was that Nida couldn't even demand to be let down, Seifer would have no reason as a Headmaster to listen to Balamb's Head Instructor, or the Senior Ranking Seed outside of the administration of the Gardens. There was, really, only one way to get out of Seifer's arms before they really reached the crowd, only one way to save face, and Nida was willing to risk it, even if it might result in disciplinary action, and maybe a nice bruise.

"Hey Seifer," Nida said, crooking his finger to imply he wanted to whisper something. Seifer bent his head closer to Nida, giving the pilot the chance to loop an arm around his neck. The other hand came to rest on the wrist of Seifer's left hand, which supported Nida's lower body. This one of Nida's hands found where nerves should be and squeezed, hard, causing Seifer's hand to jerk back. With his hand around Seifer's neck, Nida had just enough support to swing his body down without achieving much damage to himself.

Of course, now there was an angered Seifer to deal with, who was no doubt not pleased with Nida's ploy. The Headmaster lunched at Nida, who dodged nimbly out of way without breaking his stride towards Squall and the others assembled. He then ducked a stray fist as Seifer came at him again, carefully slipping a foot out at just the right place that Seifer was tripped, as if stumbling over a root. Nida pretended not to notice the falling Headmaster, just focusing on making his way to the congregation. As he drew closer he could hear the quiet cheers from the assembled students, low level SeeDs, and Selphie and Zell. There was a chuckle too from Irvine, but the rest there gave Nida only a disapproving silence.

Directly in front of the main trio of the two female headmasters and Squall, Nida paused to pull out one more risky move: saluting to Squall.

"Senior SeeD, Rank A, Nida Nomura reporting in. You'll have to forgive Headmaster Almasy, sir. He admitted to me that he wasn't feeling particularly well today, something about me being too heavy. Sadly he would not allow me to help him in any way."

Now that Nida was focused in on Squall's face he could see that the man was actually relatively amused by what had taken place. His silence, though, read 'there is a time and a place for everything'.

"I see. I will speak to him later about flying in such a state. For now I want you to report to Doctor Kadowaki for your post mission examination. I will send someone to fetch you a clean uniform."

At this Nida could not help but look down at himself. His uniform was indeed in a pitiful state, dirty and damaged in ways that he could not remember taking place. In his mind he'd only been gone a few hours. How, then, were there tears on the arms and spots of dirt and dust everywhere? He looked more as if he was coming back from months of hard labor, not just having appeared in Centra. Most confusing was the fact that some things looked like someone had tried to repair them.

"If I might hazard a suggestion, sir."

He waited three breaths before Quistis sighed and spoke up.

"Yes?"

"I am quite tired, and the doctor always tends to take so long. I would appreciate food for now, and for my debriefing to be delayed until such time as Doctor Kadowaki decides that I am fit enough to stand before the Inter-Garden Counsel." Nida had faith that the others would understand that this meant that he needed some time before he faced their inquisition.

"Of course," Squall agreed, "The Counsel has its own matters to deal with anyway. We will send for you when we are done with our discussions, and when Doctor Kadowaki has reported that you are in good shape."

Great, Nida thought. 'Own matters' probably meant they would be interrogating Seifer about what he had learned so far about Nida.

"Students are dismissed back to their duties," Squall said, turning on the people assembled behind him. "Fujin, check the records for the room number and code for Instructor Nomura and see to it that you bring him a fresh uniform to change into. Zell, you are to bring food to the infirmary. The ladies working will decide, not you. No hot dogs. Irvine, you are to escort Nomura to the infirmary and inform Kadowaki that she is to report when he has been examined and fed. Quistis, Seifer, Selphie..."

The blond gunblader had just gotten to Squall's side, his eyes locked on Nida with the most vicious glare he could muster, which was actually quite impressive.

"Please come with me. There are matters we agreed to attend to with all of your presence here today, and they must be dealt with, whether your SeeD Commanders are present or not."

And like that, everyone was leaving, even a good part of the 'Orphanage Gang'. Squall turned for a moment to direct a serious sort of silence at Nida, a 'do not think I'll forget either' sort of silence. Then the only people left outside were Irvine and Nida. With the crowd dispersed Nida sighed in relief, his attempt to look whole and healthy having drained him more than he had let on. In fact...

"Irvine," he gasped out, just before his legs buckled.

It was just enough warning for the gunner, and Nida found himself held in Irvine's arms, just barely standing on his own two feet, and even more barely under his own power. For a few moments he stood there with Irvine's arms around him, trying to catch his breath and call up enough energy to make it to the infirmary.

"Are you okay?"

"Isn't that up to Kadowaki to decide?"

When Nida awoke later his mind latched on to two odd facts: it was darker than he remembered it being upon entering the infirmary; and he was finding himself relieved to wake in a place he remembered. The latter thought was odd enough, and baseless enough, that Nida merely discarded it, possibly as the remains of some dream. The former found Nida wondering just how long he had been out.

"Don't worry," came Kadowaki's voice from his elbow, "Only ten hours. Long enough to rule out most major injuries and illnesses we can pick up from physical examination, blood tests, and G-Scanners. Even good old fashion monitoring is only turning up some fatigue."

Doctor K smiled as Nida focused in on the sight of her writing something on her clip board. "Just seems that your body was tired, something we noticed in a lot of people after the Time Compression of the Sorceress War. Probably just an expected side effect of that idiot Odine. You'll be fine in a few days. I could say otherwise to Squall though, if you would like some time. I expect he's not going to be fun to see today."

"Sadly, I don't think he's going to fall for that."

Irvine was peering at the two from the door, an apologetic smile on his face as he approached the bedside. "He told me to wake Nomura if he wasn't already awake, and take him to the conference room. Said not much reason to keep us up too late. Sooner we start, sooner Nida can get back to bed rest."

"Now I don't very much think Squall should tell me when to dismiss my own patients. Plus it is past seven o'clock. And he hasn't eaten. This is foolish."

"But if I know Squall," Nida said, shifting so he was sitting up in the bed, "There will be food waiting for me, and no doctor will get between him and the debrief."

The gunner nodded in agreement. "Squall just had the cafeteria send what they could spare to the conference room, to feed everyone, not just Nida."

"So someone get me my uniform. It doesn't pay to leave the lion waiting."

Irvine found the thing, pressed to the shock of both Nida and Irvine, hanging on the back of the door of Kadowaki's office. Nida hauled it on while Irvine quickly updated him on vital gossip between the Gardens for the last two months. Unsurprisingly a lot of it involved the missing Instructor and pilot, who people said had left on his normal three day vacation, and never returned. Some of the rumors, like him being eaten by a herd of wild chocobos, were ridiculous. Others were almost acceptable, if outrageous, like Nida taking on a stampede of Ochus all on his own, but getting lost in the forests afterwards, delirious with poison. Some involved Seifer having killed him for a variety of reasons (and only a few involved accidents). Irvine's personal favorite had Nida assigned to infiltrating a rebel organization that Squall had just taken out a week prior to Nida's return. Nida had every intention of making use of this rumor, if Squall allowed it and didn't have something better.

Irvine and Nida both agreed, though, on which rumor they disliked most. One had Nida abandoning Garden to join the still missing leader of the Zebalgas, Boyce.

"I've been having nightmares about him," Irvine reluctantly admitted, though Nida couldn't imagine why Irvine would tell Nida of all people.

Fact of the matter was that Nida was sure that he'd had those nightmares too, but he couldn't remember when, or where. He remembered a terror, and reliving horrible moments when Boyce had tried to tempt him.

The mentioning of Boyce put both Irvine and Nida into a poor mood, and made their trip to the sub-basement that had been renovated to make conference rooms and training areas. The pair arrived in the main conference room just in time to see Seifer snatching up the last hot dog on the table and taunting Zell with it. Fujin shouted something about her superior needed to behave, and Quistis merely rolled her eyes at Zell's continued rising to all of Seifer's taunts. The group was so caught up in the fight that it took Selphie's bouncy restlessness making her eyes eventually wander to the door before anyone noticed Irvine and Nida. Well, no, that wasn't exactly true. Nida was sure he caught Squall's eyes, but the man said nothing. So it was up to Selphie.

"Irvy!" she shouted, bouncing over to her cowboy and throwing herself into his arms. His hat was instantly snatched up and placed on her head, and then she was breezing past him, leaving a hurt look on Irvine's face, to give Nida a hug.

"About time you're back. We were worried SICK! Even Seifer was worried, though he won't say it! Checked all of Esthar on his own! And you know how he hates it there!"

Nida's eyes moved for a second from the hyper brunette to the blond in question, who was pointedly not looking for him. With this tidbit Nida would be able to avoid the pounding he had rightfully earned for making Seifer look like a fool.

"NIDA!" Fujin declared in her own way. It was both a greeting and a reproach for him causing people concern.

"Selphie is right, you know," Quistis said, smiling from her seat beside Squall, who seemed busy setting papers in order in front of him.

"Mu mphed fu mu," Zell choked out around the hot dog he'd stolen back from Seifer.

The pilot smiled and shook Selphie off of him. "Do you guys mind if I grab a plate of food for while you're putting me through the wringer?"

This got the group to settle down a bit, and Nida started to fill his plate and take his normal seat three places to the right of Squall's position at the head of the table. For the first minute he focused solely on the glasses of water and milk in front of him as well as the pieces of chicken. After he got the first piece down he loaded up on vegetables and other things that could be managed in the space between sentences. And then, he began.

Everyone listened attentively as he traced his day from the time Squall had called him (carefully keeping out the fact that Kiros had been present, but he caught a little bit of a twinkle in Squall's eyes, residual amusement), to the point where he'd gone through all of Odine's documentations, theories, calculations and estimations. He admitted readily that he had not expected the machine to even work, but sure enough he found himself describing the horrible pain he had been in before he woke up to Seifer carrying him across the barren landscape of Centra.

"But, there was something weird," Nida admitted after he told of Centra. "Seifer was talking about searching, and I didn't understand. I only remembered being in Odine's lab, and then in Centra. Yet when he asked me how long he thought I'd been gone, I wanted to say a year. The urge unnerved me, so I said nothing about it."

The others took this in, nodding slightly, or hmming as they thought about this piece of information.

"What is more, when Squall pointed out that my uniform was in a horrible state, I was confused. The uniform I wore to see Odine had been perfectly cleaned. It was the dress uniform I stored in my apartment there for formal occasions in Esthar. It had one of my sets of dress pilot wings on them. But when I examined the clothes before changing into the silly little robe thing the doctor wanted me in, I noticed not only tears, but both hasty and careful repairs. And my pilot wings were missing."

Another mouthful of mashed potatoes and a sip of milk before Nida launched himself into the biggest reveal, which he was sure Seifer had already blown for him.

"One more thing. When Seifer was complaining about where I'd wound up, saying there was no reason for me to be in Centra, I pointed out my parents had lived there."

This halted the whole group except for Seifer. Apparently he hadn't parted with that fact. Well, Nida could deal with that. Squall and Quistis would at least notice what this meant.

"You grew up in Winhill, silly," Selphie said. "You visit your foster mother's grave every year."

Nida nodded. "Yes, that is true. But I was raised until the age of five in a village on the Centra continent. A small one. I suddenly remembered that. I knew my parent's names, even my last name..."

"What is it?" Irvine could not help but cut in with.

"Sheya. I'm positive of it. But that wasn't all I remembered. I remembered my parents telling me stories, about Hyne and Zebalga and Vascaroon. It was a Zebalga village I grew up in. It was destroyed during the war against Adel. I started to remember so many things that my young age and Guardian Force use should have wiped my mind of. But it's all there. I don't understand it."

This was pondered for a few minutes before Squall broke the silence, as unexpected as that always was.

"This could potentially be a side-effect of the fact that you were the only one caught up in the full affects of what we can only assume was a miniature time-compression bubble. But, to be sure, we shall have to send you to a psychologist..."

"Head fuck," Seifer mumbled.

"Send you to a psychologist and the GF specialist. This might be something to do with the fact that you were not junctioned to Siren during the compression, maybe unlocking what the Guardians naturally take from us. I also want Kadowaki to do a more thorough examination of you, as well as a brain specialist. If this unlocking can be repeated, it might be something to consider. But I don't want to risk anyone."

"Glad to be a guinea pig!" Nida added to the tail end of Squall's speech. Or speech for Squall.

Squall rolled his eyes.

"Nida, this is very serious. Either there is something really wrong with you, or really right," Quistis said, sounding annoyed with his smart comment.

"Can I please remind you of the intense pain? My two month disappearance..."

"But it was longer than that, wasn't it?" Irvine cut in, and everyone went silent.

It was the kind of silence that didn't even mean anything Squall silence. And everyone was in on it except for Nida. He looked hard at everyone around the table before turning his eyes in a silent plea towards Irvine. They had grown close to each other during the last war, for understandable reasons.

"Dammit, are we seriously not going to tell him?"

"Tell me what?"

"Ellone tried to reach out to you the day after you went missing," Squall said, his voice utterly flat, even for him.

"And?"

"She said she found you," Irvine provided when no one else would speak. "Your dream was horrible she said, with Garden in utter ruin. She found you sitting in the entrance hall on a beat up bench. When she talked to you, you were glad to see her, and she told you we were looking for you. You told her you'd been gone several months."

Irvine paused to let this sink in, which it didn't really do for Nida. He didn't remember this at all.

"And before you ask, she was sure she was in contact with your mind. She could feel Siren on the edges of your mind, there was anxiety, and the words 'Zebalga', 'Traitor' and 'Boyce' were written all over in graffiti. Who else would have dreams like that, all things considered? And she was there more than once, though each time after the first you apparently tried to ignore her. She said the first time, when you learned how long it had been, you shouted at her, accused her of being a nightmare, and got so worked up that you probably woke up wherever you were, or just became utterly unreachable."

"We didn't know what to do with that information," Seifer admitted in annoyance. "Either you had disappeared, awakened somewhere, turned off your tracker, and proceeded to go mad, or you were telling the truth. What were we, are we, supposed to believe?"

Nida frowned down at the food before him for a few moments, and finally just pushed it away.

"I suppose that is just one more question I do not have the answer to. Now, if you will excuse me, I am tired. Very tired."

Without waiting for permission, Nida rose and left the conference room. His mind was racing in the most horrible ways. He couldn't figure out why any of this was happening, much less what any of it meant. His mind focused in on the apparent contact between himself and Ellone, that he could in no way remember. And his mind focused in on the story his father used to tell him when he was just a little child.

_Once upon a time there was a person named Hyne. Hyne was the ruler of the world. He became lazy and decided to make a tool to make his life easier. Hyne made a neat tool. His tool could make more tools by itself. Soon there were a lot of tools in the world. These tools were actually people..._

The beginning of the Legend of Vascaroon, as told by the Zebalga. Nida wanted to break down and cry. He held himself together, though, until the elevator carried him back to the first floor, until he managed to drag himself through the corridors of the residential wing to where the private SeeD rooms were, and until the door was shut behind him and he collapsed, fully dressed, into bed.

He didn't want to deal with it right now. He didn't even want to think about any of it.

As Nida sat up to strip off his uniform a pale blue glow caught his eye. On the breast of his dress uniform in the corner was Nida's other set of dress pilot wings, the pale blue glow of the adamantine.

For some reason the sight of the wings, softly glowing in the corner, brought tears to Nida's eyes at last.


	17. Epilogue

Author's Pre-Notes: Please see the end.

* * *

Pilot Wings: Epilogue

_To be honest, I don't know why I'm doing this. I found an old leather diary in a drawer today, never used, and all of a sudden I had an urge to write. I think someone, once, told me it was a good idea, to get things out of your head. So I'm going to try it. _

_Life hasn't been easy these last few months. Not long after I had walked out on the meeting after my return to Garden, Squall, Seifer, and Irvine had followed me back to my room. Well, so had Selphie, and there was a momentary scamper outside of my door to keep her out, but the trio of men showed up, and Irvine sat with me until I had calmed enough to face Squall and Seifer. Again they asked questions, trying to focus in on my memories, especially my home town. Apparently Boyce had mentioned at one point that the final Zebalga settlement in the 'home land' had been destroyed in the wars against the Magic-Bitches. Everyone had just thought it a lie to justify one of the attacks on an innocent village by the Zebalga, but suddenly it seemed likely. Boyce had said no one survived..._

_Apparently he was wrong. _

_They also asked me about the dreams with Ellone, if I'd ever had anything similar, and I had to sadly admit that I had, repeatedly. Ever since Boyce's disappearance I'd been having them, and Irvine mentioned something similar occurred with him since about the same time. The suspicion raised at that point was that we'd suffered a lot of the same things at the hands of Boyce, but I could tell there was something else Irvine suspected, though he still hasn't said anything._

_I've also been taken off of active duty these last few months, put under extensive psychological, neurological, physiological, and whatever-ological magic and GF monitoring falls under. They've only determined that I am not, in fact, hallucinating all these memories, but that it is likely that the means by which I regained them was dangerous, as I'm still fatigued. Luckily my students don't have to learn flight from Selphie, which saves me extra stress in all of those tests. But the lack of doing anything was driving me crazy, until I finally caved in and demanded from Squall that I be sent to Esthar. Everyone who was monitoring me was based there anyway, so why shouldn't I just stay in my apartment there. Squall gave me an odd look, a silence I couldn't read, and allowed it._

_In fact, Squall has done that a lot these last months. Silences I can't understand, over long looks followed by seeming ignorance, dropping in just to check on my in Esthar, or random middle of the night calls as if he doesn't know what time it is. Kiros, who visits as often as not, suggests that Squall is worried about me, but I don't know. I'm starting to wonder what would have happened if Squall and I had ever had that talk after I was done with Odine the day I disappeared. Now, I don't know if I want to deal with it._

_The nightmares are getting worse, despite what the medication I'm given implies should happen. Every night Boyce is there, or Garden is in ruins, or Siren is ripped away from me by some unknown force, a man in black and red armor, and with eyes the color of adamantine. He talks to me sometimes, that man, but I never remember the words, or never quite understand them. And sometimes I dream of a foul mouthed man in blue, always badgering me about tea or fixing something, but it never really seems malicious. When I wake up from those, there are tears in my eyes._

_The world seems to be settling down around me, finally recovered from the war, but I can't help but feel things aren't over yet. The memories still seem fresh for enough people. Just the way people freeze and look around when someone actually mentions anything that rhymes with 'Xu', that is enough to show they haven't forgotten._

_Ah, there is the door. Kiros was coming back today with some food from the Presidential Kitchens. Far more important than some damn writing in a damn book._

* * *

"Fuckin piece of shit."

The last of Cid's patience with the Tiny Bronco had worn out, and he flung a wrench at the ground, swearing up a storm and not noticing how the heavy metal had just barely missed his right foot. The Bronco had just not been cooperating since...

Cid shook his head and fetched up the wrench and returned his attention to the tangle of wires blocking his sight from just where in the engine block he wanted to get to. Really, this shit was harder than he remembered. Not that he was getting too old for it, but his hands just weren't nimble, never had been. There were things you needed tools for, and there were things you needed small, quick hands for. And he hadn't had a pair of those around since...

"FUCK!" Cid shouted, refusing to continue that thought, and thinking a nice curse would draw his mind from it.

It didn't. Cid threw the wrench aside again and plopped down on the grass near the Bronco.

He'd thought that, given time, he'd think less and less about it. It had been months since the incident in Mideel. It had been long enough that he should get around to fucking cleaning the house, or moving that damn book from the kitchen table, or stop dirtying the pages as he read it again and again, to focus on the last words.

'Forgive me. I fear I must do something that will make neither of us happy. In case everything goes wrong, or right, I've left you a momento, other than this book. I'm sorry I didn't ask, but forgive me, for I had to take one for myself as well.'

After the first time reading it, Cid had discovered while cleaning that his box that stored his pilot wings had been moved. When he opened it he found an oddly glowing set there. Beside it he found his own wings. He had sworn.

What, had the kid just decided that Cid's wings weren't good enough to actually take?

The pilot cut off that line of thought immediately. He tried to reach for the wrench, but the spirit just wasn't in him anymore.

Things hadn't been the same since Nida had disappeared into the Lifestream.

There! He had said it. Now fuck you world from taking Nida from him!

Cid sighed and stood, intending to head inside and make some tea. He paused though, as he caught sight of something coming towards Rocket Town from beyond the direction of the rocket. It wasn't easy to make out at first, but Cid was always able to tell if something was moving or not.

And indeed, there was something, someone, moving purposefully towards Rocket Town right now. For a while Cid watched, trying to see if he could make out if it was a villager, someone he knew from outside of the area, or someone he'd have to beat the shit out of. For several minutes he watched, growing more and more disbelieving the closer and closer the figure got.

In the end, though, he said 'fuck you' to believing, opened the gate in his fence, and started running towards the advancing figure, cursing up a storm.

A thankful and joyful storm, but a storm none the less.

* * *

Author's Post-Notes: Well, there you have it. That is the end of Pilot Wings, but not the end at all (but I did promise relatively happy, right?). I hope to quite soon start on the story that has often been hinted at in Pilot Wings, and especially in these last chapters. So keep your eyes peeled. I can already tell you the story will be called 'Hyne's War', and once that is finished, I will write a sequel to Pilot Wings (provided I'm still writing by that time) called 'Eden's Chosen'. But for now, I just hope you enjoyed this story, and I'm sorry it took so long to write.

P.S. Hopefully for the next part I will be able to acquire a beta to put into the know, or who will at least be willing to read, edit, and make sure I don't fuck up continuity within that story itself, or between that story and this.

P.P.S. There will be one more chapter added after this, the original epilogue as I intended before Minerva decided she had to demand a price of Nida.


	18. Special Extra

Author's Notes: A note from Nida to Cid. Originally written in my free time between Chapters 5 and 6 of Pilot Wings, just so you know how long I was planning this vein of evil rather than where I ended up having the story go.

This, obviously, happened before I learned Nida needed to lose his memory, so this was where the story was MEANT to end up.

_

* * *

Cid,_

_It's been six months since I got back, and I'm writing, like I promised. I'm pretty sure you won't remember about it, but I gave you my word, and I'd never go back on my word to you. So, as pointless, as ridiculous as it seems, I'm here, writing. It's almost midnight now, and I've got work in the morning. Squall offered me time off, but… I need something you know._

_Well, I guess I have something, other than the journal of course. I'm sorry, I switched our pilot wings. When I was cleaning up the extra room I found yours. They were simple steel things, shaped like the wings of a bird. They looked like you'd never worn them before, or maybe just only once. I was sure you wouldn't miss them, but I still left mine in their place. I wear your wings on my uniform now. Squall seemed bewildered by my loss of the gold and silver that had been made for me, but Kiros understands. Still, I hope that you'll find mine some day, to have something to remember me by. You are, after all, rather forgetful._

_I think what makes it so hard to get through the days is that, other than the wings and the scars and the journal, there is nothing here that reminds me specifically of you. My uniform was so badly damaged in a Malboro uprising in the Islands that I had to get a new one. Nothing here is tied to you. It isn't our bed, your lady, our home. I'm not in your arms when I sleep. I wish you were here. But then… I guess you would be in the position I was. It isn't very pleasant._

_What I wish for most (besides you of course) is someone to talk to. No one here would even begin to believe me. I was only gone for three days here. We were damn good on the timing. The only one I could consider speaking to is Kiros. He knows what it's like to love and lose, but he's all I've got and I can't risk driving him away. He'll never be you, but I guess there is some comfort I can take in that fact. When I'm with him I can at least pretend that it is really you._

_So tonight, as promised, I made this letter for you, undeliverable, unremarkable, unbelievable, and unbearable. It feels as if all the pain from those first few days is back, but if I could handle it then, I can handle it now. All I can do is hope that the Lifestream, that flow of energy and existence Cloud spoke of is not only true, but universal. That someday, after we've lived out our time, your Goddess would grace me with being reborn to be at your side. It is a silly hope, but it gets me to sleep at night._

_I wish I hadn't come back. I wish we hadn't found a way to bring me home. I miss you Cid. I don't think I will ever stop missing you. And I don't give a damn if you would want me to or not. Because somewhere inside I know you're just a greedy bastard and you'd want me to carry the memory of that to the grave. I just hope you remember me too._

_And that, I guess, is all there is to say. I'll put this letter away now, hidden in the pages of the journal. Hidden in your story. Hidden along with you. I'm going to put it away now, and I'm not going to look at it, or this, or the wings again. I promised you that. I won't back down on it. Just please, please know I'll always love you and I'll remember what we had as long as I can. All for you._

_-Nida_

_P.S. I've decided I'm going to stop using GFs any more than I absolutely have to. Anything to preserve the memory of you, you pompous, arrogant, self-centered, egotistical, vulgar, crude, cruel, gentle, sweet, kind, loving, wonderful, bastard. _


End file.
